{"id":42103,"date":"2026-02-28T09:04:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42103"},"modified":"2026-02-28T09:04:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T09:04:27","slug":"trump-directs-us-agencies-to-toss-anthropics-ai-as-pentagon-calls-startup-a-supply-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42103","title":{"rendered":"Trump directs US agencies to toss Anthropic’s AI as Pentagon calls startup a supply risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he is directing the government to stop work with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the start-up a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over technology guardrails.<\/p>\n

Trump added there would be a six-month phase-out for the Department of Defence and other agencies that use the company\u2019s products. If Anthropic does not help with the transition, Trump said, he would use \u201cthe full power of the presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow\u201d.<\/p>\n

The actions mark an extraordinary rebuke by the United States against one of the premier companies that has kept it in the lead on national security-critical AI, threatening to give Anthropic pariah status that Washington until now had reserved for hostile suppliers. Alphabet\u2019s Google and Amazon are among Anthropic\u2019s financial backers.<\/p>\n

The moves further set a precedent that US law alone would constrain how AI is deployed on the battlefield, with the Pentagon seeking to preserve flexibility in defence and not be limited by warnings from the technology\u2019s creators against powering weapons with unreliable AI.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Anthropic said it would challenge any risk designation in court by the Department of Defence, which the Trump administration has renamed the Department of War.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe this designation would both be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late on Friday, rival OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft (MSFT.O), Amazon and others, announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Department of Defence\u2019s classified network. Chief executive Sam Altman wrote on X that the Pentagon shared its principles for human responsibility over weapons systems and for having no mass US surveillance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put them into our agreement,\u201d Altman said of the points. \u201cWe also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether these contractual details differed from the red lines proposed by Anthropic. The Pentagon and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Anthropic would be designated a supply-chain risk, following an impasse in months of talks over whether the company\u2019s policies could constrain military action.<\/p>\n

Meeting with Hegseth this week, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei argued for weapons and surveillance limits and reportedly irritated Pentagon officials. The Pentagon said US law, not a private company, would determine how to defend the country.<\/p>\n

The designation could bar tens of thousands of contractors from using Anthropic\u2019s AI when working for the Pentagon. That represents an existential threat to its government business and could harm its private-sector relationships, said Franklin Turner, an attorney who specialises in government contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlacklisting Anthropic is the contractual equivalent of nuclear war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Similar US action was taken to remove Chinese tech giant Huawei from the Pentagon\u2019s supply chains. Starting in 2017, the US restricted the Department of Defence’s use of Huawei equipment, prohibited federal agencies from purchasing its technology, and halted federal grant and loan funds for Huawei equipment.<\/p>\n

Anthropic has raced to win fierce competition to sell novel technology to businesses and government, particularly for national security, ahead of a widely expected initial public offering. The company has said it has not finalised an IPO decision.<\/p>\n

Saif Khan, who served on the National Security Council in former President Joe Biden\u2019s White House, said the Department of Defence\u2019s action \u201cmay be the most draconian domestic AI regulation any government has ever issued\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department is arguably treating Anthropic as a greater national security threat than any Chinese AI companies, none of which they have designated supply-chain risks,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

Tech companies and the Pentagon have repeatedly locked horns since at least 2018, when employees at Alphabet\u2019s Google protested against the Pentagon\u2019s use of its AI to analyse drone footage. A rapprochement ensued, with companies including Amazon and Microsoft competing for defence business, while several big tech chief executives pledged cooperation with the Trump administration last year.<\/p>\n

But theoretical \u201ckiller robots\u201d have worried human rights and technology activists as wars in Ukraine and Gaza have showcased increasingly automated systems. More assertive US military action in the past year has added to these concerns, said Jack Shanahan, who directed the Pentagon\u2019s algorithmic warfare effort, Project Maven.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople might be a little bit more nervous about no restrictions,\u201d Shanahan said. The White House\u2019s legal sign-off could be \u201ctop cover for anybody that does anything that would potentially result in a lack of due process, civilian casualties, collateral damage\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon signed agreements worth up to $200 million each with major AI labs in the past year, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google.<\/p>\n

Anthropic, negotiating for awards under that ceiling, had flagged concerns about the legal system\u2019s ability to keep pace with AI progress. At present, for instance, US laws do not prevent the use of technology to compile seemingly innocuous data to reveal information about people\u2019s private lives, its chief executive, Amodei, has said.<\/p>\n

Anthropic\u2019s AI has been in use across the intelligence community and armed services, and it was first among peer AI companies to work with classified information, through a supply deal via cloud provider Amazon.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he is directing the government to stop work with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the start-up a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over technology guardrails. Trump added there would be a six-month phase-out for the Department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}