The Pentagon labels Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Talks stalled on a demand to permit "all lawful uses" of Claude: Anthropic would not drop its bars on fully autonomous weapons and the mass surveillance of Americans. On 27 February 2026 Secretary of War Pete Hegseth directed that the company be designated a supply-chain risk to national security.
Why it matters
A boundary on the use of AI was drawn neither by engineering nor by law but by a supplier's refusal, and the state answered it by shutting the supplier out of a market.
Amodei and Under Secretary Emil Michael had traded draft terms since December 2025; Hegseth set a deadline of 5 p.m. on 27 February. That day the President wrote on Truth Social that he was directing every federal agency to cease all use of Anthropic's technology at once: "We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again!" Agencies such as the Department of War got a six-month phase-out. A little over an hour later Hegseth posted on X: "Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic." Anthropic said it would challenge any such designation in court; on 26 February it had offered, if dropped, to help the Department move to another provider. The formal designation is Hegseth's memorandum of 3 March; Anthropic received the letter on 4 March and sued on 9 March. That is why later sources date the designation to March. The announcement date, 27 February, is used here.