Anthropic refuses the Pentagon's request, and Trump orders federal agencies to cease using Anthropic products.

Anthropic and Pentagon Compliance Dispute Suddenly Escalates

On Friday, February 27, former President Trump announced that all U.S. federal agencies are to cease using products from AI company Anthropic, with a six-month transition period.

Trump used strong language on social media, stating:

Left-wing radicals at Anthropic have made a disastrous mistake by trying to force the Department of Defense to comply with their terms of service instead of our Constitution. Therefore, I have directed all federal agencies to immediately stop using all Anthropic technologies.

Previously, U.S. Secretary of Defense Hegseth threatened to terminate a $200 million contract if the request was not met by 5 p.m. Friday, which xAI has agreed to.

According to Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon demanded that Anthropic license Claude “for all lawful uses,” but Anthropic refused to compromise over concerns about “mass surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.”

CEO Dario Amodei stated that the company could not accept the Defense Department’s so-called “final offer” contract terms. In a blog post, he openly said:

We cannot, in good conscience, agree to their demands.

Impact on Anthropic

The core of the dispute is the Pentagon’s standard: in sensitive environments, AI models should be usable for “all lawful purposes” and not be restricted by “policy constraints” that limit military applications.

It was reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized in a memo on January 9 the need for “models that are unaffected by policy constraints and do not limit legitimate military use.”

Anthropic insists on two red lines: the models must not be used for “mass surveillance of Americans” or “fully autonomous weapons.” The company directly criticized the latest Pentagon draft, stating that the seemingly compromising language and legal terminology could allow these safeguards to be “ignored at any time.”

This prompted a sharp rebuke from Emil Michael, Deputy Secretary of Defense for R&D, on social media, who called Amodei “a liar with a God complex” and accused him of trying to “personally manipulate the U.S. military.”

Anthropic is currently valued at $380 billion and has signed approximately $200 million in contracts with the military.

More critically, Anthropic was until recently the only AI system capable of operating within the Pentagon’s classified cloud environment, with its Claude Gov tool favored by defense personnel for its ease of use.

Silicon Valley Under Pressure, OpenAI Also Negotiating

Despite the escalating conflict, the U.S. Department of Defense’s stance briefly softened on Friday morning. Emil Michael told Bloomberg TV:

As long as negotiations are conducted in good faith, the Department of Defense is willing to continue dialogue. I am willing to communicate further until the deadline, and I have informed them of this.

However, this window may have closed following Trump’s direct intervention. The White House’s tough stance has completely dominated the situation, sharply narrowing any potential room for compromise.

This is not an isolated incident. According to The Wall Street Journal, employees at tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft have previously urged their employers to reject Pentagon demands for unrestricted AI product use.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also stated in an internal memo that the company is engaging with the Pentagon on similar restrictions, saying “we hope to help de-escalate the situation.”

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