Trump Orders Federal Companies to Dump ‘Woke’ Anthropic AI After Pentagon Dispute

President Donald Trump has directed all U.S. federal companies to cease utilizing synthetic intelligence know-how developed by Anthropic, escalating a dispute between the AI firm and the Pentagon over how the army makes use of the know-how.

In a Fact Social put up on Friday, Trump mentioned companies should “immediately cease” utilizing Anthropic merchandise, with a six-month phase-out interval for departments that already use the corporate’s know-how.

“The USA of America won’t ever enable a radical left, woke firm to dictate how our nice army fights and wins wars!” Trump wrote. “That decision belongs to your commander-in-chief and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our military.

The directive follows Anthropic’s refusal on Thursday to remove safeguards preventing Claude from being used for “mass domestic surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons,” after Pentagon officers demanded contractors enable their techniques for use for “any lawful use.”

“The left-wing 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,” Trump wrote.

President Trump known as the scenario a risk to U.S. troops and nationwide safety.

“Their selfishness is putting American lives at risk, our troops in danger, and our national security in jeopardy,” Trump mentioned.

Anthropic has resisted Pentagon demands to grant unrestricted military use of its models, while also recently walking back safety language in its Responsible Scaling Policy.

On Friday, CNBC reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is working to “help de-escalate” the situation. De-escalating the tension could be a heavy lift, however.

In his post, Trump said decisions affecting U.S. military operations must remain under presidential authority rather than “some out-of-control, radical left AI firm run by individuals who don’t know what the true world is all about,” he said.

“Anthropic better get their act together and be helpful during this phase-out period, or I will use the full power of the presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump said.

Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth chimed in on the matter following Trump’s put up, providing comparable feedback relating to the choice and calling Anthropic’s transfer a “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.”

“I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” Hegseth wrote 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 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,” he added. “This decision is final.”

Following Trump’s announcement, the nonprofit Middle for Democracy and Expertise commented on the transfer in a press release despatched to Decrypt.

“The President is wielding the complete weight of the federal authorities to blacklist an organization for taking a narrowly-tailored, principled stance to limit among the most excessive makes use of of AI you might think about—totally autonomous weapons and the mass surveillance of Individuals,” mentioned CDT President and CEO Alexandra Givens.

“This motion units a harmful precedent. It chills non-public corporations’ capability to interact frankly with the federal government about acceptable makes use of of their know-how, which is particularly essential in nationwide safety settings that so usually have diminished public visibility,” she added. “Retaliating towards an organization for setting tailor-made, principled situations on its product’s use undermines fundamental market freedoms and makes us all much less protected.”

Editor’s observe: This story was up to date after publication to incorporate feedback from Hegseth and the CDT.