Tipsheet

Here's What Caused Things to Collapse Between the Pentagon and This AI Firm

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  February 28, 2026 8:00 AM

Those poor pitches on Shark Tank? This is the political equivalent. It may get overlooked because of the airstrikes against Iran last night, but the Pentagon declined a promising partnership with AI company Anthropic. It has been said that arrogance was the reason a potential deal fell through. 

We’ll get into what CEO Dario Amodei reportedly said during a series of meetings that led Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to walk away, but let’s put it this way: if you’re an AI firm concerned about your product being used for surveillance or potential military strikes, you probably shouldn’t be working with the Pentagon.   

Those were the issues the firm faced, which led to its being blacklisted in DC, with Trump calling it a threat to our national security interests. It was also a circus behind the scenes (via WaPo): 

As a standoff between artificial intelligence firm Anthropic and the Pentagon deepened this week, the two sides offered starkly different accounts of a key discussion about a hypothetical nuclear strike against the United States, revealing the intensity of their showdown over the American military’s potential use of lethal autonomous weapons. 

A defense official said the Pentagon’s technology chief whittled the debate down to a life-and-death nuclear scenario at a meeting last month: If an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched at the United States, could the military use Anthropic’s Claude AI system to help shoot it down? 

It’s the kind of situation where technological might and speed could be critical to detection and counterstrike, with the time to make a decision measured in minutes and seconds. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei’s answer rankled the Pentagon, according to the official, who characterized the CEO’s reply as: You could call us and we’d work it out.

Yikes. The Washington Reporter’s op-ed also noted why the Department of War was right to walk away:

First, DOW exists to defend the United States and keep Americans safe, not to outsource battlefield decisions to a progressive company’s compliance team. When the U.S. government lawfully purchases a technology, it must be able to use it for lawful national security purposes. Anthropic signed a contract knowing was dealing with the U.S. military. It cannot now insist that its internal “values” override the elected government’s constitutional authority to wage war and protect the country. This would be corporate control of our military.  

Second, as former congressional chiefs of staff, we know what it looks like when corporations try to push the government around. We have seen industries threaten to pull investment, withhold cooperation, or weaponize public pressure campaigns to extract leverage over policymakers. That is not how the constitutional system works. When a vendor decides it gets to define the permissible scope of lawful government action after the ink is dry on a contract, that is dangerous for the DOW.  

[…] 

Third, this is about deterrence. China is racing to integrate AI into its armed forces. The United States cannot afford to handicap itself because a private company wants veto power over how AI is deployed. If Anthropic wants to be a defense contractor, it must operate under the defense department.  

For now, OpenAI is the Pentagon's new shiny AI toy. 

Here's Secretary Hegseth's statement about the Pentagon's falling out with Anthropic.

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon. 

Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.   

Instead, Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei, have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission - a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.   

The Terms of Service of Anthropic’s defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield. 

Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable. 

As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives.   

Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered.   

In conjunction with the President's directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic's technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service. 

America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.