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Anthropic has until Friday evening to either give the U.S. military unrestricted access to its AI model or face the consequences, reports Axios<\/a>.<\/p>\n Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in a meeting Tuesday morning<\/a> that the Pentagon will either declare Anthropic a \u201csupply chain risk\u201d \u2014 a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries \u2014 or invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) to force the company to tailor a version of the model to the military\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n The DPA gives the president the authority to force companies to prioritize or expand production for national defense. It was recently invoked during the COVID-19 pandemic to compel companies like General Motors and 3M to produce ventilators and masks, respectively.<\/p>\n Anthropic has long stated that it doesn\u2019t want its technology used for mass surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons \u2014 and is refusing to compromise on these points.<\/p>\n Pentagon officials have argued the military\u2019s use of technology should be governed by U.S. law and constitutional limits, not by the usage policies of private contractors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Using the DPA in a dispute over AI guardrails would mark a significant expansion of the law\u2019s modern use. It would also reflect an expansion of a broader pattern of executive branch instability that has intensified in recent years, according to Dean Ball, senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation and former senior policy advisor on AI in Trump\u2019s White House.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt would basically be the government saying, \u2018If you disagree with us politically, we\u2019re going to try to put you out of business,\u2019\u201d Ball said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> The dispute unfolds against a backdrop of ideological friction, with some in the administration \u2014 including AI czar David Sacks \u2014 publicly criticizing Anthropic\u2019s safety policies as \u201cwoke.\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAny reasonable, responsible investor or corporate manager is going to look at this and think the U.S. is no longer a stable place to do business,\u201d Ball said. \u201cThis is attacking the very core of what makes America such an important hub of global commerce. We\u2019ve always had a stable and predictable legal system.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a serious game of chicken, and Anthropic may not be the one to blink first. According to Reuters<\/a>, Anthropic doesn\u2019t plan on easing its usage restrictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anthropic is the only frontier AI lab with classified DOD access, according to several reports. The Department of Defense doesn\u2019t have a backup option currently in play \u2014 though the Pentagon has reportedly<\/a> reached a deal to use xAI\u2019s Grok in classified systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n That lack of redundancy may help explain the Pentagon\u2019s aggressive posture, Ball argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf Anthropic canceled the contract tomorrow, it would be a serious problem for the DOD,\u201d he told TechCrunch, noting the agency appears to be falling short of a National Security Memorandum<\/a> from the late Biden administration that directs federal agencies to avoid dependence on a single classified-ready frontier AI system.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe DOD has no backups. This is a single-vendor situation here,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey can\u2019t fix that overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n TechCrunch has reached out to Anthropic and the DOD for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 9, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n