White House, Pentagon drift apart on Anthropic fight

The White House and the Pentagon are taking significantly different approaches to how — and whether — the federal government uses Anthropic’s artificial intelligence systems.

As the White House warms up to the frontier AI company and the Pentagon digs its heels in against the firm, government employees and contractors are left in a bind.

“For providers dependent on a specific model, this creates confusion,” an industry source operating inside federal agencies told The Hill. “Most are taking a dual-track approach to wait for clarity while preparing internally to transition from Anthropic to alternative models if needed.”

Pentagon keeps firm in Anthropic fight

Just more than two months have passed since the Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic from its military work after a dispute with the company over the potential use of its AI models for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous attacks.

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to ban Anthropic from the Pentagon, President Trump took a step further and told civilian agencies to stop using its products as well.

A federal judge temporarily paused Trump’s directive, allowing agencies to continue using Anthropic’s products after weeks of shutdowns, lapses and inconsistent access to the AI tools across different agencies.

Anthropic is challenging its designation as a supply chain risk — typically reserved for foreign adversaries — in court, and Department of Defense leaders indicated as recently as last week they are not planning to back down. 

Hegseth slammed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as an “ideological lunatic” during a Senate hearing last week, telling lawmakers the firm would not agree with the Pentagon’s terms of service. He compared it to “Boeing giving us airplanes and telling us who we can shoot at.” 

A day later, the Defense Department’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, told CNBC that Anthropic is still a supply chain risk, reiterating the Pentagon has........

© The Hill