Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly "close" to cutting business ties with Anthropicand designating the firm asupply chain risk- a penalty typically reserved for foreign adversaries, a senior Pentagon official toldAxios.
Anthropic's flagship model, Claude, is already embedded in the military's classified systems - however the company's CEO has been pushing for abstract guardrails over ethical concerns for what the government sees as urgent national security needs.
If classified as a national security risk,the designation would force any company that wants to do business with the U.S. military to certify it does not use Anthropic’s AI- effectively blacklisting the firm from large swaths of the defense ecosystem.
“It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle,” the senior official toldAxios. “And we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand.”
Chief Pentagon spokesmanSean Parnellconfirmed the review, framing it as a matter of national security.
“Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight,” Parnell said. “Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people.”
Claude was notably used during the January operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, highlighting how deeply embedded the software already is within U.S. defense operations. AsAxiosnoted on Saturday:
The tensions came to a head recently over the military's use of Claude in the operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, through Anthropic's partnership with AI software firm Palantir.
Since then, Pentagon officials and Anthropic executives have been locked incontentious negotiations over how the military may use the AI, particularly insurveillance, intelligence collection, and weapons development.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodeihas pushed for guardrails to prevent mass surveillance of Americans or the use of AI in fully autonomous weapons systems without human involvement, however the Pentagon says those restrictions are unworkable. Anthropic's ownAcceptable Use Policy(UAP) explicitly prohibits the use of Claude for:
Source: ZeroHedge News
