Trump orders federal agencies to drop Anthropic services amid Pentagon feud

Source: Engadget

Trump’s Order to Drop Anthropic Services

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that all U.S. government agencies must cease using Claude and other Anthropic services. He gave a six‑month phase‑out period for federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, to migrate off Anthropic’s products.

“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,” the president wrote. “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.”

Defense Department’s Position

Earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that Anthropic could be labeled a “supply chain risk” if it did not withdraw safeguards that prohibit using Claude for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. After Trump’s statement, Hegseth posted on X:

“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.”
— Pete Hegseth on X

Anthropic’s Response

Anthropic did not immediately comment to Engadget. A company spokesperson earlier said the contract received after CEO Dario Amodei’s outline made “virtually no progress” on preventing the outlined misuses.

“New language framed as a compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW’s recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months,” the spokesperson said. “We remain ready to continue talks and committed to operational continuity for the Department and America’s warfighters.”

In a blog post published late on Friday, Anthropic pledged to challenge any supply‑chain‑risk designation in court and clarified that only work related to the Defense Department would be affected. The full statement is available here.

“Designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk would be an unprecedented action—one historically reserved for US adversaries, never before publicly applied to an American company… We are deeply saddened by these developments… We believe this designation would both be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.”
— Anthropic statement

Advocacy and Industry Reaction

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) condemned the president’s threats:

“This action sets a dangerous precedent. It chills private companies’ ability to engage frankly with the government about appropriate uses of their technology… These threats undermine the integrity of the innovation ecosystem, distort market incentives and normalize an expansive view of executive power that should worry Americans all across the political spectrum.”
— Alexandra Givens, President and CEO, CDT

Hundreds of Google and OpenAI employees signed an open letter urging their companies to stand in solidarity with Anthropic. According to an internal memo seen by Axios, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman indicated that OpenAI would draw the same red line as Anthropic.

Open letter: Google and OpenAI employees sign open letter in solidarity with Anthropic

Updates

• February 27, 9 PM ET: The story was updated twice after publication.
  • The first update (6 PM ET) added a link to and quotes from Hegseth about the supply‑chain‑risk designation.
  • The later update added Anthropic’s quote and a link to the company’s blog post.