Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is pushing for a deal with the Pentagon after a heated dispute put the AI company at risk of being blacklisted by the US government.
According to the Financial Times, Amodei held urgent talks with officials, including Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to arrange an agreement on military access to Anthropic’s AI models.
A successful outcome would allow the Pentagon to continue using the company’s technology and avoid a threatened designation as a supply chain threat, effectively excluding Anthropic from defense contracts and forcing military contractors to cut ties with the San Francisco-based AI firm.
After the US operation to arrest Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, reports surfaced that Anthropic employees discovered through Palantir reports that Claude was used during the operation.
This application raises questions about compliance with Anthropic’s Acceptable Use Policy.
Combined with the company’s reluctance to allow its AI for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, this led to a bitter setback in negotiations with the Pentagon.
The department is seeking broad authorization to use AI for any “lawful” purpose that anthropic fears might allow surveillance to oppose.
After Amodei rejected the government’s ultimatum, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a threat to the national security supply chain.
Amodei accused the Pentagon and OpenAI of misrepresenting the issue. He also suggested that Anthropic was being dropped in part because it didn’t praise Trump as enthusiastically as its rivals.
Anthropic, along with OpenAI, Google and xAI, secured a Pentagon deal worth up to $200 million to advance the agency’s AI for military use. Losing that base would be a major setback for a company that has positioned itself as a leader in AI security.
