President Trump on Friday blasted Anthropic as “woke” and “leftwing” for refusing to remove safeguards on its AI for use in surveillance and autonomous weapons. “WE will decide the fate of our Country—NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
As PCMag reports, the president argued that San Francisco-based Anthropic is run by “Leftwing nut jobs” who allegedly tried to strong-arm the Pentagon into obeying its terms of service, rather than the US Constitution. “Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY,” Trump wrote.
In a tweet, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth piled on, claiming, “Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal” after being awarded a contract worth up to $200 million to prototype AI capabilities for national security.
What is Anthropic and their Red Lines?
As CBS News reports, Anthropic created Claude, an AI chatbot you might use at work or school. Since last summer, its government version has been deeply embedded in military intelligence and classified operations at the Pentagon. This past week, in the lead-up to the attack on Iran, the Defense Department demanded Anthropic hand over its AI without restrictions for lawful military use. The company refused.
“We have these two red lines,” said Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. “We’ve had them from Day One. We are still advocating for those red lines. We’re not gonna move on those red lines.” Those red lines? Not allowing Anthropic’s AI to perform mass surveillance of Americans, and prohibiting its AI from powering fully-autonomous weapons without any human involvement.
Amodei said, “It doesn’t show the judgment that a human soldier would show – friendly fire or shooting a civilian, or just the wrong kind of thing. We don’t want to sell something that we don’t think is reliable, and we don’t want to sell something that could get our own people killed, or that could get innocent people killed.” It’s a question of who should control the most advanced technology ever created: a private tech company, or the federal government?
Asked if he believes Anthropic knows better than the Pentagon, Amodei replied, “One of the things about a free market and free enterprise is different folks can provide different products under different principles. Our model has a personality. It’s capable of certain things. It’s able to do certain things reliably. It’s able to not do certain things reliably. And I think we are a good judge of what our models can do reliably and what they cannot do reliably.”
Asked about the president referring to Anthropic as “a left-wing woke company,” Amodei said, “I can’t speak for what other parties are doing, and what they’re doing. … But we, I think, have tried to be very neutral. So, this idea that we’ve somehow been partisan, or that we haven’t been even-handed? We’ve been studiously even-handed.”
White House and Pentagon to Blacklist Anthropic
Aside from the name-calling, the White House is preparing to essentially blacklist Anthropic. “I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” Hesgeth added, which he previously pledged to do if the company refused to comply with the Pentagon’s demands by Friday at 5:01 p.m. EST. “Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” he added.
The Defense Department plans on phasing out Anthropic’s AI technology over the next six months. In his own post, Trump also directed every other federal agency to immediately cease using the company’s technology. “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” he wrote.
In addition, the president is threatening to crack down even harder on Anthropic, though he didn’t get specific. “Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump said. Still, the White House has reportedly been considering using the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to comply with its terms.
Anthropic’s loss is OpenAI’s Gain?
Hours later on Friday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced it had struck a deal for the Pentagon to use its models in the US defense agency’s classified network, with “technical safeguards,” after President Donald Trump blacklisted AI rival Anthropic.
“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X, adding that those principles went “into our agreement.”
As India Today reports, OpenAI’s decision to replace Anthropic was met with criticism online. Following the backlash, Sam Altman and other executives have shared more details of how this contract will work.
On X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that the deal had been “rushed” and the optics “don’t look good” for the company. However, according to Altman, the AI startup wanted to de-escalate the situation between the US Military and the AI industry. He wrote, “If we are right and this does lead to a de-escalation between the DoW and the industry, we will look like geniuses.”
OpenAI’s contract with the US Department of Defense allows for the use of AI “for all lawful purposes.” When asked if OpenAI will allow its models to be used for any unconstitutional order, Sam Altman said, “If we are confident it’s unconstitutional, we wouldn’t follow it. The constitution is more important than any job, or staying out of jail, or whatever.”
The OpenAI website also states that it can terminate the contract if the Pentagon violates any terms. The company also states, “We don’t expect that to happen.”
What’s Next?
For its part, Anthropic has vowed to sue over the “intimidation” in what has become a rare public dispute between a major tech firm and the US government, insisting its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
“It’s about the principle of standing up for what’s right,” said Amodei, who has found himself at the center of a new kind of firestorm. What’s wrong, in his view, is why the AI company he co-founded has been banned from the federal government. “It feels very punitive and inappropriate, given the amount that we’ve done for U.S. national security,” he said.
Meanwhile, the supply-chain risk designation could potentially have severe financial consequences. As noted by Dean W. Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former Trump AI advisor, “Nvidia, Amazon, Google will have to divest from Anthropic if Hegseth gets his way. This is simply attempted corporate murder. I could not possibly recommend investing in American AI to any investor; I could not possibly recommend starting an AI company in the United States.”
Asked what he might say to President Trump, Amodei said, “We are patriotic Americans. Everything we have done has been for the sake of this country, for the sake of supporting U.S. national security. We believe in defeating our autocratic adversaries. We believe in defending America. The red lines we have drawn, we drew because we believe that crossing those red lines is contrary to American values,” he said. “Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world. And we are patriots. In everything we have done here, we have stood up for the values of this country.”
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