U.S. President Trump recently posted on the social platform Truth Social, instructing federal departments to completely stop using all products of artificial intelligence company Anthropic within a six-month transition period, and emphasized that the company is no longer welcome as a federal government contractor in the future. "We don't need it, don't want it, and will not do any more business with this company," he said in a tough post.
However, the presidential statement itself did not mention another "punitive measure" previously released to the outside world-the designation of Anthropic as a national supply chain risk enterprise. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then tweeted on the X platform, following through on the threat. He said that in compliance with the president's directive for the federal government to completely stop using Anthropic technology, the Department of Defense will classify Anthropic as a "supply chain risk to national security." Effective immediately, any contractor, supplier or partner that does business with the U.S. military will no longer be allowed to conduct any business activity with Anthropic.
The conflict centers on disagreements between Anthropic and the Pentagon over the boundaries of military artificial intelligence applications. The Pentagon wants to use the company's models for large-scale domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems, but Hegseth believes the restrictions Anthropic has set are too restrictive. Anthropic, for its part, adheres to red lines on the use of its technology and refuses to support large-scale domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons of destruction.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reiterated that position in a public statement released Thursday, saying the company will not compromise on these two principled issues. He also emphasized that the company "strongly hopes" to continue to provide services to the Ministry of National Defense and frontline officers and soldiers while maintaining these two security conditions. Amodei said that if the Department of Defense ultimately chooses to "offline" Anthropic, the company will cooperate to ensure a smooth transition to other suppliers and avoid any disruption to current military planning, operations and other critical missions.