Heated Rivalry Arises Between Anthropic and US Government

After many months of negotiations, artificial intelligence company Anthropic rejected demands from the United States government to drop restrictions on their AI, Claude. 

Based in San Francisco, Anthropic was founded by former OpenAi employees, with Dario Amodei as the company’s CEO. On February 27th, 2026, the Trump administration considered Anthropic a supply-chain risk, blacklisting the company from all government agencies. 

“Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” President of the United States Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. 

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted on X.

“This action follows months of negotiations that reached an impasse over two exceptions we requested to the lawful use of our AI model, Claude: the mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic said in response to Hegseth’s post.

The blacklist not only includes being unable to be used by the United States government (although Anthropic is obligated to provide services to the DOD for six months for ease of transition), but also being unable to partner with companies such as Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, stood by Anthropic’s decision to stick with the restrictions that they have placed on their AI, Claude. 

“We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions. These are our main red lines,” Altman said.

On February 27th, OpenAI announced a deal that was struck with the Department of Defense to allow them to use their AI models. OpenAI will have similar restrictions on their AI as Anthropic had on Claude.

Facing public scrutiny,  a mass uninstalling of ChatGPT occurred. On Monday, a statement released by Altman said that the agreement was to be updated to be more explicit on ChatGPT’s restrictions.