Nearly two hours after President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was banning Anthropic products from the federal government, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took it one step further and announced that he was now designating the AI company as a “supply-chain risk,” which Anthropic says it is willing to challenge in court.
The decision could immediately impact numerous major tech companies that use Claude in their line of work for the Pentagon, including Palantir and AWS. It is not immediately clear to what extent the Pentagon may blacklist companies that contract with Claude for other services outside of national security, Anthropic has responded, claiming the designation applies only to the use of its Claude AI on Department of Defense contract work specifically.
After a week of tense negotiations over the company’s acceptable use policies, the Pentagon gave Anthropic an ultimatum: agree by Friday, 5:30 PM EST, to let the Pentagon use Claude for “all legal purposes,” including for autonomous lethal weapons without human oversight and mass surveillance, or be designated a supply-chain risk. The designation, which is typically used for companies with ties to foreign governments that pose national security risks to the United States, will bar any company that uses Anthropic products from working with the Department of Defense.
In his tweet posted just after 5PM ET, Hegseth broadened the designation to encompass companies doing “any commercial activity with Anthropic,” reiterating Trump’s mandate that companies had six months to divest themselves from Anthropic products.
“Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic,” he wrote. “Instead, @AnthropicAI and its CEO @DarioAmodei have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of ‘effective altruism,’ they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.”
Hegseth, as Secretary of Defense, has the ability to label a company a “supply-chain risk” at his own discretion. But the decision comes after the Pentagon made several other attempts to compel Anthropic to let them use Claude as they wished, including the threat to invoke the Defense Production Act.
Anthropic responded to both the Department of Defense and the White House on Friday evening, saying in a blog post that it had not received direct communication from either organization about the status of their negotiations. According to Anthropic, despite what Hegseth’s tweet implied, it is telling customers that “The Secretary does not have the statutory authority to back up this statement.”
The company argues that the designation can only apply “to the use of Claude as part of Department of War contracts—it cannot affect how contractors use Claude to serve other customers,” and that merely having a contract with Anthropic is irrelevant.
As far as the designation itself and the DoD policy pushed by Hegseth, Anthropic says it’s willing to go to court to settle the matter:
Update, February 27th: Added response from Anthropic.
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
Curated by James Chen
