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A 2011 file photo of the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Department of Defense.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to blacklist Anthropic from working with the U.S. military over the artificial intelligence company’s refusal to loosen its safety standards.
The threat came on Tuesday during a meeting between Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While both sides agreed Hegseth vowed to punish Anthropic for not bending to the administration’s demands, accounts of what exactly the threat was vary. One person close to the discussion said Hegseth dangled the possibility of canceling Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Defense Department, while a Pentagon official said repercussions could include forcing Anthropic to allow the federal government to use its AI tools against its will and blacklisting the company from receiving future work with the U.S. military.
For months, Amodei has insisted that using AI for domestic mass surveillance and AI-controlled weapons are ethical lines the company will not cross, calling such use “illegitimate” and “prone to abuse.” According to a source familiar with the Hegseth meeting, Amodeo stressed those positions again on Tuesday.
Hegseth has said Anthropic needs to allow the U.S. to use its AI in all “lawful” purposes, which could include AI-directed warfare and surveillance.
Pentagon officials said the Defense Department is planning to keep using Anthropic’s tools, regardless of the company’s wishes.
According to the officials, if Anthropic does not back down, Hegseth plans to invoke the Defense Production Act, a law from the 1950s usually invoked during national emergencies to force companies to produce certain products considered critical to national security.
Such a move would compel Anthropic to allow its tools to be used by the military “if they want to or not,” according to a senior Pentagon official.
The Trump administration’s retaliation against Anthropic would also include labeling the company a “supply chain risk,” a move tantamount to placing Anthropic on a government blacklist, according to the people with knowledge of the meeting.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at a meeting in New Delhi last month.
Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
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Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Anthropic’s hard line on domestic surveillance and AI weapons has been labeled “woke AI” by Hegseth and other Trump administration officials. White House AI czar David Sacks helped draft an executive order last year that targeted tech companies over the claim.
AI experts say “woke AI” is a nebulous and ill-defined term that Trump officials seem to use to describe any and all safety protections on powerful AI tools and the belief that AI chatbots have liberal bias baked into their models.
Competing AI firms such as OpenAI and Google have agreed to allow their AI tools to be used in any “lawful” scenarios, as has Elon Musk’s xAI, which this week was approved for use in classified settings.
The Pentagon awarded Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI contracts each worth up to $200 million last summer, but Anthropic was the first to be cleared for classified use after defense officials considered it the most advanced and secure model for sensitive military applications.
The dispute with the White House comes at a time when Anthropic is under heightened scrutiny, since the company is planning to go public this year. It is unclear how the friction with the administration will sit with investors.
Amodei has pointed out that Anthropic’s valuation and revenue have only grown since the company took a stand against Trump officials over how AI can be deployed on the battlefield.
“My main fear is having too small a number of ‘fingers on the button,’ such that one or a handful of people could essentially operate a drone army without needing any other humans to cooperate to carry out their orders,” Amodei wrote in a January essay outlining his concerns. “I think we should approach fully autonomous weapons in particular with great caution, and not rush into their use without proper safeguards.”
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