The Pentagon is pressuring major AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI, to authorize the U.S. military’s use of their technology for “all lawful purposes.”
According to Axios, an anonymous Trump administration official stated that one of these companies has agreed to the demand, while two others have shown flexibility. Anthropic has reportedly been the most resistant to these terms. Due to this resistance, the Pentagon is threatening to terminate its $200 million contract with Anthropic.
Tensions between the two parties are not new; the Wall Street Journal reported in January that significant disagreements existed regarding the usage of Anthropic’s Claude models. The WSJ also reported that Claude was utilized during the U.S. military operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In response to these reports, an Anthropic spokesperson told Axios that the company has “not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of War.” Instead, the spokesperson stated that Anthropic is focused on “Usage Policy questions — namely, our hard limits around fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.”
