The Pentagon on Friday declared the anthropogenic situation a supply chain risk after US President Donald Trump ordered his country’s government agencies to stop using an AI startup’s products, effectively averting a dispute between the startup and the US military over railing on its technology.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the decision in a post and asked the Pentagon to prevent its suppliers and their partners from doing business with Anthropic.
“In conjunction with the President’s order that the federal government cease all use of Anthropic technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk,” Hegseth said.
“Effective immediately, no supplier, contractor, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” he added.
Hegseth set a six-month deadline for Anthropic to hand over its AI services to another provider.
“Anthropic will continue to serve the Department of War for a period of not more than six months to facilitate a smooth transition to a better and more patriotic service,” the defense secretary wrote in his post.
He said Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration has been “permanently changed.”
“Anthropic’s position is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the federal government has therefore been permanently altered,” Hegseth wrote.
“America’s warfighters will never be held hostage to the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final,” he added.
What did Donald Trump say?
Pete Hegseth’s directive came hours after Donald Trump asked federal agencies to stop using Anthropic and its services.
“Those leftist fools at Anthropic made a CATASTROPHIC MISTAKE when they tried to STRENGTHEN THE OPTION TO GET RID of the War Department and force them to follow their terms of service instead of our Constitution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He warned that there would be “serious civil and criminal consequences” if the company did not comply. The president did not specify what consequences Anthropic would expect.
“Therefore, I am ordering ALL Federal agencies within the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY Cease all use of Anthropic technology.”
Read also | Trump orders federal agencies to ‘immediately’ stop using Anthropic AI technology
What does this decision mean for Antropicka?
Trump and Hegseth’s decision essentially means that Anthropic will lose a $200 million contract with the federal government. However, this contract represented 1.4% of Antropic’s $14 billion in sales.
What may raise concern is the labeling of Antropic as a supply chain risk, the same that is used for Chinese companies like Huawei for the obvious security threats they pose. This prohibits all US contract companies from using Claude or other Antropia services in their Pentagon operations. It remains to be seen how these companies will respond to the order and whether they will remove the AI startup as a whole from their books.
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Hegseth gave the company until 5:01 p.m. Friday to allow the Pentagon to use the Claude chatbot for any purpose within legal limits, but the firm and its CEO, Dario Amodei, resisted.
Pushing Anthropic out of the government creates a potential national security challenge, given that until recently the company was the only artificial intelligence system that could operate in the Pentagon’s classified cloud. Its Claude Gov tool is a popular choice among defense personnel for its ease of use.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman rallied behind Anthropic on Friday, telling employees in a memo seen by Bloomberg that his company had spoken with defense officials about using its models with similar limits.
The move is likely to draw backlash from Silicon Valley, where workers have rallied to Anthropic’s side. Workers at several major technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. urged their employers to reject Pentagon demands for unrestricted use of AI products.
Key things
- The Pentagon’s decision highlights the growing tension between technology firms and government regulations.
- The designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk has significant national security implications.
- This conflict could affect other technology companies’ relationships with the government and their approach to compliance.
