Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: killer robots, mass surveillance, and red lines

The Trump administration has spent nearly two months fighting with AI company Anthropic. It’s dubbed the company a “RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY” full of “Leftwing nut jobs” and a menace to national security. But some of the ice may reportedly be melting between the two, thanks to Anthropic’s buzzy new cybersecurity-focused model: Claude Mythos Preview.

Anthropic’s relationship with the Pentagon soured quickly in late February after the company refused to budge on two red lines: using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or lethal fully autonomous weapons with no human in the loop. Anthropic’s tech has in the past been used heavily by the DoD and, it was the first company to have its models cleared to operate on classified military networks. The stalemate led to public insults on social media, Anthropic being categorized as a “supply chain risk,” the company filing a lawsuit fighting that designation, and a temporary injunction halting its ban.

After Anthropic’s weeks-long standoff with the Pentagon, the company won one milestone: A judge granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit, which sought to reverse its government blacklisting while the judicial process plays out.

“The Department of War’s records show that it designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk because of its ‘hostile manner through the press,’” Judge Rita F. Lin, a district judge in the northern district of California, wrote in the order, which will go into effect in seven days. “Punishing Anthropic for bringing public scrutiny to the government’s contracting position is classic illegal First Amendment retaliation.”

Anthropic’s fight with the Pentagon is expanding to Congress. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is working on a new bill to “codify” Anthropic’s red lines and ensure humans make the ultimate decisions in questions of life and death, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) recently introduced a bill to limit the Defense Department’s ability to use AI for mass surveillance of Americans.

The Trump administration blacklisted Anthropic earlier this month after it set limits on how the military could use its AI models, designating it a supply-chain risk. Anthropic has filed suit, accusing the government of violating its constitutional rights. It’s insisted that the Pentagon avoid using its products for fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance — resisting a deal signed by major competitor OpenAI. Anthropic is waiting to hear if a court will block the administration’s decision to label it a supply chain risk.

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Amid a weekslong conflict with the Pentagon, resulting in a blacklist and a lawsuit, Anthropic is shaking up its C-suite and research initiatives. The company announced Wednesday that it’s launching a new internal think tank, called the Anthropic Institute, that combines three of Anthropic’s current research teams. It will focus on researching AI’s large-scale implications, such as “what happens to jobs and economies, whether AI makes us safer or introduces new dangers, how its values might shape ours, and whether we can retain control,” per the company.

The news comes with C-suite changes, too. Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark is moving into a new role leading the think tank. His new title will be head of public benefit, after more than five years as head of public policy. The public policy team — which tripled in size in 2025, per Anthropic — will now be led by Sarah Heck, who was formerly head of external affairs. Anthropic will also open its planned office in Washington, DC, and the public policy team will continue to focus on issues like national security, AI infrastructure, energy, and “democratic leadership in AI.”

Anthropic has sued the US government over its designation as a supply-chain risk, the latest move in a weekslong battle between it and the Pentagon over the acceptable use cases for its military AI tech. The suit, filed in a California district court, accuses the Trump administration of illegally punishing the company for setting “red lines” on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

“The federal government retaliated against a leading frontier AI developer for adhering to its protected viewpoint on a subject of great public significance — AI safety and the limitations of its own AI models — in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States,” the suit reads. “Defendants are seeking to destroy the economic value created by one of the world’s fastest-growing private companies, which is a leader in responsibly developing an emergent technology of vital significance to our Nation.”

After weeks of failed negotiations, public ultimatums, and lawsuit threats, the Defense Department has formally labeled Anthropic a “supply-chain risk,” escalating its fight with the AI company over their acceptable use policies and potentially bringing their fight to court.

The decision, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, citing one source familiar, will bar defense contractors from working with the government if they use Claude, Anthropic’s AI program, in their products. Though the designation is typically applied to foreign companies with ties to adversarial governments, this is the first time that an American company has publicly received this label.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is reportedly back at the negotiating table with the Department of Defense in an attempt to salvage the company’s relationship with the US military and prevent it from being iced out of defense work for being a “supply chain risk.” Talks between the two parties imploded on Friday after weeks of bitter public feuding over the startup’s refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI, with rivals like OpenAI rushing to fill the void.

Amodei is in talks with under-secretary of defense for research and engineering Emil Michael about a new contract that would allow the US military to continue using Anthropic’s Claude AI models, according to the Financial Times, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter. Michael attacked Amodei on social media last week amid a tense standoff over acceptable military uses of AI, calling the executive a “liar” with a “God-complex” and accusing him of “putting our nation’s safety at risk.”

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On Friday evening, amidst fallout from a standoff between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that his own company had successfully negotiated new terms with the Pentagon. The US government had just moved to blacklist Anthropic for standing firm on two red lines for military use: no mass surveillance of Americans and no lethal autonomous weapons (or AI systems with the power to kill targets without human oversight). Altman, however, implied that he’d found a unique way to keep those same limits in OpenAI’s contract.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement,” he added, using the Trump Administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department, the Department of War.

Nearly two hours after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was banning Anthropic products from the federal government, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took it one step further and announced that he was now designating the AI company as a “supply-chain risk,” which Anthropic says it is willing to challenge in court.

The decision could immediately impact numerous major tech companies that use Claude in their line of work for the Pentagon, including Palantir and AWS. It is not immediately clear to what extent the Pentagon may blacklist companies that contract with Claude for other services outside of national security, Anthropic has responded, claiming the designation applies only to the use of its Claude AI on Department of Defense contract work specifically.

On Friday afternoon, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, accusing Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, of attempting to “STRONG-ARM” the Pentagon and directing federal agencies to “IMMEDIATELY CEASE” use of its products. At issue is Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s refusal of an updated agreement with the US military agreeing to “any lawful use” of Anthropic’s technology, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mandated in a January memo, to the frustration of many tech workers across the industry.

As we explained earlier this week, that agreement would give the US military access to use the company’s services for mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons, or AI that has full power to track and kill targets with no humans involved in the decision-making process. OpenAI and xAI have reportedly already agreed to the new terms, though OpenAI is reportedly looking to negotiate with the Pentagon to adopt the same red lines as Anthropic.

It’s the day of the Pentagon’s looming ultimatum for Anthropic: allow the US military unchecked access to its technology, including for mass surveillance and fully autonomous lethal weapons, or potentially be designated a “supply chain risk” and potentially lose hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts. Amid the intensifying public statements and threats, tech workers across the industry are looking at their own companies’ government and military contracts, wondering what kind of future they’re helping to build.

While the Department of Defense has spent weeks negotiating with Anthropic over removing its guardrails, including allowing the US military to use Anthropic’s AI kill targets with no human oversight, OpenAI and xAI had reportedly already agreed to such terms, although OpenAI is reportedly attempting to adopt the same red lines in the agreements as Anthropic. The overall situation has left employees at some companies with defense contracts feeling betrayed. “When I joined the tech industry, I thought tech was about making people’s lives easier,” an Amazon Web Services employee told The Verge, “but now it seems like it’s all about making it easier to surveil and deport and kill people.”