The Trump administration announced Thursday that the Defense Department has designated AI company Anthropic as a supply chain risk.
The Pentagon said it “officially informed Anthropic leadership that the company and its products are deemed a supply chain risk, effective immediately.” That designation requires government contractors to stop using Anthropic’s chatbot Claude on projects for the U.S. military. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company disagrees with the move and plans to contest it in court, adding that firms may continue to use Anthropic’s tools on non‑Pentagon work.
The action follows a week in which President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that Anthropic posed a national security threat. It also caps months of dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon over safety limits built into Claude that restrict certain battlefield and war‑gaming uses.
Anthropic has said it engaged with national‑security officials and sought narrow exceptions that would allow some military uses without removing safeguards intended to limit surveillance and autonomous weaponization. Amodei said the discussions explored ways Claude could assist the military without dismantling those protections. The Pentagon, however, has signaled no ongoing negotiations; Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael posted on X that there is no active Department of Defense negotiation with Anthropic.
The Pentagon framed the move as a matter of principle, saying the military must be able to use technology “for all lawful purposes” and will not accept a vendor imposing restrictions that could interfere with command decisions or put warfighters at risk. Anthropic responds that its requested exceptions were narrowly tailored to high‑level usage areas and would not affect operational decision‑making.
The dispute highlights tensions between commercial AI safety constraints and military demands for unrestricted access to emerging capabilities.