Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to give the military unfettered access to its AI model or face harsh penalties, Axios has learned.
Hegseth told Amodei in a tense meeting on Tuesday that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a "supply chain risk," or invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military's needs.
The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude.
Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
A senior Defense official said the meeting was "not warm and fuzzy at all." Another source told Axios it remained "cordial" with no voices raised on either side, and that Hegseth praised Claude to Amodei.
Hegseth told Amodei he won't let any company dictate the terms under which the Pentagon makes operational decisions, or object to individual use cases.
Hegseth specifically mentioned the Pentagon's claim that Anthropic raised concerns to its partner Palantir over the use of Claude during the Maduro raid.
Amodei denied that Anthropic raised any such concerns or even broached the topic with Palantir beyond standard operating conversations.
He reiterated that the company's red lines have never prevented the Pentagon from doing its work or posed an issue for anyone operating in the field.
In a sign of how seriously the Pentagon is taking this dispute, Hegseth was joined in the meeting by Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg, Under Secretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffy, Hegseth's chief spokesperson Sean Parnell and general counsel Earl Matthews, the Pentagon's top lawyer.
The Defense Production Act gives the president the authority to compel private companies to accept and prioritize particular contracts as required for national defense.
It is rarely used in such a blatantly adversarial way. The idea, the senior Defense official said, would be to force Anthropic to adapt its model to the Pentagon's needs, without any safeguards.
Anthropic could theoretically take the administration to court, arguing it's not providing the sort of commercially available product for which the DPA can be used to expedite production, but custom-built software already tailored to sensitive government uses, according to one defense consultant.
The Pentagon is also considering severing its contract with Anthropic and declaring the company a supply chain risk, which would require a plethora of other companies that work with the Pentagon to certify that Claude isn't used in their workflows.
Elon Musk's xAI recently signed a contract to bring its model, Grok, into classified settings, though it's unclear whether it would be able to fully replace Claude.
The Pentagon has been speeding up conversations with OpenAI and Google about moving their models – already available for unclassified uses into classified systems, sources tell Axios.
The one source said Gemini is seen as a potential replacement if and when a deal is reached. That would require Google to let the Pentagon uses its model for "all lawful purposes," the same terms that Anthropic rejected.
Posted by John3262005
3 Comments
I wonder what happens if Anthropic doesn’t back down.
Maybe they do, and it is possible
But if they don’t, apparently the choices for the Trump administration is that
*Hegseth told Amodei in a tense meeting on Tuesday that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” or invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military’s needs.*
So either completely cut off the company (possible choice but it will takes days, weeks or months to cut ties since it is used for a wide variety of stuff in the military. There is no equal to it in the competition)
Or
Use the Defense Production Act and force the company to tailor its model to the military’s needs, which apparently the act has rarely been used in such a blatantly adversarial way. The idea, the senior Defense official said, would be to force Anthropic to adapt its model to the Pentagon’s needs, without any safeguards
Given the Trump administration’s affinity to skirt or outright ignore law, somehow I feel like the latter is the choice then the former if the company doesn’t back down.
Overall, I guess we’ll see what happens on Friday.
The answer is to relocate your company somewhere else obviously.
They are just looking for an excuse to hand the contract to ~~Ted Faro~~ Elon Musk.