War Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Department of War to designate Anthropic as a supply-chain risk to national security.
President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to cease using technology made by Anthropic, he said in a Truth Social post on Feb. 27.
This development followed escalating negotiations this week between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who ordered his Department of War (DOW) to designate the company a supply-chain risk to national security, he said in a statement Friday after Trump’s announcement.
The Pentagon had previously asked the company, which makes the AI chatbot Claude, to open its artificial intelligence (AI) models to the U.S. military, setting a Friday at 5 p.m. deadline for Anthropic to agree to terms, but Trump’s announcement came about an hour before that.
“The United States of America will never allow a radical left, woke company to dictate how our great military fights and wins wars!” Trump wrote in all caps in his post.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War.”
Hegseth also accused Anthropic of trying to seize veto power over operational decisions within the U.S. military. He said the company put on “a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.”
The Pentagon’s position never wavered, Hegseth said on X, adding that the DOW “must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.”
“Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles,” Hegseth said. “Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered.”
“Effective immediately,” the war secretary wrote, “no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
Amodei had said he “cannot in good conscience accede to [the Pentagon’s] request.”
He issued a news release on Feb. 26, declining to adhere to the Department of War’s terms.
Hegseth also had warned that the department would designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk or invoke a Cold War-era law, the Defense Production Act, to force the company to comply if it did not agree.
The law grants the federal government wide authority over private companies to order them to comply with national defense needs.
By Troy Myers
