Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to cut Anthropic from his department’s supply chain unless it agrees to sign off on its technology being used in all lawful military applications by Friday.
The threat is the latest escalation in a feud between Anthropic and the department, triggered by the AI group’s refusal to give unfettered access to its models for classified military use, including domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Hegseth summoned Anthropic chief Dario Amodei to Washington for a meeting on Tuesday. During the talks, the defence secretary threatened to cut Anthropic out of the department’s supply chain or to invoke the Defence Production Act, which enables the president to exert control over domestic industry in the interest of national defence, according to a person with knowledge of the talks.
Anthropic confirmed the meeting took place on Tuesday. “We continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government’s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do,” it said in a statement.
Anthropic’s Claude is the only model working on classified missions, as a result of the group’s partnership with Palantir.
Hegseth is also negotiating with AI labs, including Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, to integrate their technology into classified military systems.
Anthropic has expressed particular concern about its models being used for lethal missions that do not have a human in the loop, arguing that even state-of-the-art AI models are not yet reliable enough to be trusted in those contexts, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
It had also pushed for new rules to govern the use of AI models for mass domestic surveillance, they added.
A move to cut Anthropic from the defence department’s supply chain would have significant ramifications for national security work, as well as for the company, which has a $200mn contract with the department.
Claude was used in the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January. That mission prompted queries from Anthropic about the exact manner in which its model was used, according to people familiar with the matter.
The defence department declined to comment.