“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” he continued. “Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.”
“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” he added.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced Friday afternoon that the Pentagon would label Anthropic a supply chain risk to national security. The designation bans any contractor, supplier, or partner of the U.S. military from any commercial activity with Anthropic.
Trump’s post comes as the Pentagon and Anthropic have been locked in negotiations over the AI firm’s terms of service, with the Department of Defense (DOD) threatening to cancel its contract with the company if it does not agree to its terms by Friday afternoon.
The president said there would be a six-month phase-out period for agencies using the company’s products.
He warned Anthropic to “get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period,” threatening to “use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.”
“WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” the president said in the post.
The Hill has reached out to Anthropic for comment. The Pentagon told The Hill it had nothing further to provide.
Trump’s announcement came as the DOD delivered its last and final offer to Anthropic on Wednesday night, requesting that the company allow the department to access its AI model, Claude, for “all lawful purposes.”
Anthropic said Thursday that “virtually no progress” had been made in discussions with the Pentagon over the terms of use of the model. The company’s CEO Dario Amodei noted in a separate statement that they could not “in good conscience accede” to the DOD’s terms.
“New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will,” an Anthropic spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday. “Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.”
Anthropic is one of several companies that inked a $200 million contract with the Pentagon last summer, a deal that is now in jeopardy as the company’s usage policy prevents Claude from being utilized for fully autonomous lethal weapons or mass domestic surveillance of Americans. Those are the two red lines at the crux of the spat with the Pentagon.
Amodei said Thursday the company “understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions,” using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Department of Defense, and he underscored that they have “never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.”
“However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values,” he added. “Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.”
Amid the feud, the DOD has also threatened to label Anthropic as a supply chain risk or invoke the Defense Production Act, which gives the president broad authority to control domestic industries in the name of national defense.
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