President Trump Orders Federal Agencies to Cease Using Anthropic Products
In a recent post on Truth Social, President Trump directed federal agencies to stop using all products from the tech company, Anthropic. This decision follows a public disagreement between Anthropic and the Department of Defense. The President has provided a six-month opt-out period for departments that currently use these products but has made it clear that Anthropic will no longer be welcomed as a federal contractor. In his post, he stated, “We don’t need it, we don’t want it and we won’t do business with them anymore.”
Anthropic Designated as a National Security Supply Chain Risk
In spite of the President’s post not initially mentioning plans to classify Anthropic as a supply chain risk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later confirmed this action. Hegseth tweeted that in line with the President’s directive, he was instructing the War Department to label Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk. The immediate effect of this is that no contractor, supplier, or partner engaging in business with the U.S. military may conduct commercial activities with Anthropic.
The Core of the Dispute
The primary issue leading to this dispute was Anthropic’s refusal to let its AI technology be utilized for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, which Secretary Hegseth deemed as overly restrictive. Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, remained firm on his stance, stating in a public post that he wouldn’t compromise on either issue. He added, “Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters – with both of our required safeguards.”
Plans for a Smooth Transition
Amodei also assured that if the Department chose to discontinue business with Anthropic, they would facilitate a smooth transition to another provider to avoid any disruption to ongoing military operations and missions.
Support from OpenAI
OpenAI, another leading AI organization, sided with Anthropic’s decision. As reported by the BBC, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, informed staff that he was following the same “red lines” and would also reject any defense contracts that included uses deemed “unlawful or unsuitable for cloud deployments, such as domestic surveillance and autonomous attack weapons.”
Industry Reactions
Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder, who had a public disagreement with Altman in November 2023 and has since founded his own AI company, also commented on the situation. He said, “There will be many more challenging situations like this in the future, and it will be crucial that appropriate leaders rise to the challenge and that tough competitors put their differences aside. Nice to see that happen today.”
Last July, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google each received contract awards from the US Department of Defense. While some Google employees have shown support for Anthropic, Google and its parent company have yet to comment on the situation.
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