Donald Trump on Thursday claimed to sever ties between the US military and Anthropic, the same day multiple reports said talks had resumed between the Defense Department and the AI ​​startup.
They are one of the latest developments in the ongoing rift between the US government and an AI company.
“Well, I fired Anthropic. Anthropic is in trouble because I fired (them) like dogs, because they shouldn’t have,” Trump told Politico on Thursday.
A few hours later, the Pentagon officially designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a move that bars all government contractors from using the company’s technology. This label has never been used against an American company before.
“DoW has officially informed Anthropic leadership that the company and its products are considered a risk to the supply chain, effective immediately,” a Pentagon official said. bloomberg.
But at the same time, there were reports of thawing. Negotiations have resumed between the Pentagon and Anthropic over the military use of the company’s AI and a contract between the two. financial Times And Bloomberg. Anthropic’s products, which include popular cloud chatbots and coding assistants, are integrated into Palantir’s Maven system, a key new tool of military intelligence that was used in the recent attacks on Iran. Washington Post.
According to Bloomberg, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, is discussing the Pentagon contract with Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and former Uber executive Emil Michel. Both strongly dislike each other, the new York Times Informed.
Trump last week ordered the entire federal government to stop using Anthropic’s technology after the company refused to settle with the government over concerns that its models could be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
Both the State and Treasury departments have already begun severing ties, according to their respective heads. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week verbally designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” and Amodei has said his company will sue over the label.
On Thursday, Amodei sent a scathing message to his staff condemning the Trump administration and rival OpenAI, which jumped into the void left by the breakup of the government and Anthropic late last week, and announced its own deal with the military. Amodei called OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a “liar” and said Altman’s claims that the Pentagon would follow security measures was nothing more than “security theater.” For his part, Altman told employees in an internal message this week that the company would have no control over how the Army uses OpenAI’s technology.
Retaliatory blacklisting of a company can cause significant financial damage. Anthropic’s most recent funding round, about $60 billion, is in jeopardy because of a dispute with the Pentagon. Axios. Silicon Valley, including OpenAI, has supported Anthropic in the fight for designation as a supply chain risk.
As the Defense Secretary vowed punitive measures against Anthropic, his agency also announced a deal with OpenAI to use its technology for military operations in its classified networks. Over time, questions over ethics led to a backlash that pushed the cloud’s app to the top of the download charts in the US. In the following days, Altman said he would amend the agreement with the department and acknowledged that his company’s conduct appeared “opportunistic and reckless”.
