Pete Hegseth of Anthropic, tech industry group with Google ‘concerned’

A tech industry group, including its members Nvidia, Google And Anthropic sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday expressing concern over his designation of a US company as a supply chain risk.

Anthropic was not named in the letter written by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), although the artificial intelligence company was given that label on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with the Defense Department.

“We are concerned by recent reports regarding the Department of War’s consideration of imposing a supply chain risk designation in response to a procurement dispute,” ITI wrote in the letter.

Other members of ITI included Microsoft, Apple And Amazon.

“Contractual disputes should be resolved through continuous negotiation between the parties or by the department selecting alternative suppliers through established procurement channels,” the ITI said. “Emergency authorities such as supply chain risk designations exist for true emergencies and are typically reserved for entities designated as foreign adversaries.”

Shortly after President Donald Trump ordered every US government agency to immediately stop using the company’s technology, Hegseth announced Friday at X that the Pentagon would label Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security.”

The ITI letter cited established processes, including the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act of 2018 and the Federal Acquisition Security Council, to protect federal information systems from threats.

“FASCSA provides private companies with several layers of procedural due process protections, including providing notice requirements and an opportunity to respond before making such a designation.” ITI wrote.

Anthropic, which won a $200 million DOD contract in July, had requested the company to guarantee that its technology would not be used for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance of Americans. The Pentagon objected, demanding that the military be allowed to use the platform for all legitimate use cases.

Anthropic wrote in a statement Friday that it was “deeply saddened” by the decision.

“The designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk is an unprecedented move — a move historically reserved for U.S. adversaries that has not previously been publicly applied to an American company,” Anthropic wrote.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said later that day that his company had reached an agreement with the Department of Defense, but he wrote in X that “imposing an SCR designation on Anthropic is very bad for our industry and our country, and certainly for his company.”

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