Pentagon Issues Friday Deadline to Anthropic Over AI Military Utilization
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued an ultimatum to AI company Anthropic, giving CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to remove restrictions on how the military can use its Claude AI system or face severe consequences.
In a tense Tuesday meeting at the Pentagon, Hegseth threatened to cancel Anthropic’s $200 million contract and designate the company as a supply chain risk if it doesn’t comply. The Defense Department is also considering invoking the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that would force Anthropic to provide its AI technology without safeguards, even against the company’s wishes.
At the heart of the dispute are Anthropic’s ethical guardrails that prohibit Claude from being used for mass domestic surveillance of American citizens and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic maintains that AI technology isn’t reliable enough to operate weapons independently and that no laws or regulations yet exist governing AI use in mass surveillance.
The conflict reportedly escalated after the Pentagon claimed Anthropic questioned whether its product was used in the January military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Anthropic denies raising such concerns, stating they have continued “good-faith conversations” to support the government’s national security mission responsibly.
Anthropic’s Claude is currently the only AI model cleared for the Pentagon’s most sensitive classified work, making this standoff particularly significant. However, Elon Musk’s xAI recently became the second company approved for classified settings, potentially giving the Pentagon an alternative.
Source: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/24/anthropic-pentagon-claude-hegseth-dario