US President Donald Trump announced Friday that he was instructing every federal agency to halt the use of Anthropic’s AI tools effective immediately. The move comes after Anthropic and top officials from the clashed for weeks over military applications of artificial intelligence.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The Pentagon and Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Department of Defense has sought to change the terms of a deal struck with Anthropic and other AI companies last July to eliminate restrictions on how AI can be deployed and instead permit “all lawful use” of the technology. Anthropic objected to the change, claiming that it could allow AI to be used to fully control lethal autonomous weapons or to conduct mass surveillance on US citizens.
The Pentagon does not currently use AI in these ways, and has said it has no plans to do so. However, top Trump administration officials have voiced opposition to the idea of a civilian tech company dictating military use of such an important technology.
Anthropic was the first major AI lab to work with the US military, through a $200 million deal signed with the Pentagon last year. It created several custom models known as Claude Gov that have fewer restrictions than its regular ones. Google, OpenAI, and xAI signed similar deals around the same time but Anthropic is the only AI company currently working with classified systems.
Anthropic’s model is available through platforms provided by Palantir and Amazon’s cloud platform for classified military work. Claude Gov is currently largely used for run-of-the-mill tasks, like writing reports and summarizing documents, but it is also used for intelligence analysis and military planning, according to one source familiar with the situation who spoke to WIRED who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.
In recent years, Silicon Valley has gone from largely avoiding defense work to increasingly embracing and becoming full-blown military contractors. The fight between Anthropic and the Pentagon is testing the limits of that shift. This week, several hundred workers from OpenAI and Google signed an open letter supporting Anthropic and criticizing their own companies’ decisions to remove restrictions on military use of AI.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
