The Department of Defense<\/span> asked OpenAI to provide the U.S. military with a special version of its artificial intelligence technology designed to turn down the Pentagon\u2019s requests as infrequently as possible, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.<\/p>\n The desire for a custom AI tool with \u201cminimal refusal rates\u201d to Pentagon commands was revealed in files released to The Intercept as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about the military\u2019s secretive deals with AI companies.<\/p>\n OpenAI, along with rivals Google, xAI, and Anthropic, all agreed in 2025 to develop militarized prototypes of their state-of-the-art AI to assist the armed forces in uses including logistics, intelligence decision-making, and general \u201cwarfighting.\u201d Earlier this year, the Pentagon sought to expand the scope of these agreements and deploy them across U.S. classified computer networks, resulting in a high-profile showdown with Anthropic<\/a> over whether and how the company could restrain military uses of its technology.<\/p>\n The clause seeking \u201cminimal refusal rates\u201d from OpenAI appears in an updated contract \u2014 version \u201cP00003\u201d<\/a> \u2014 expanding upon last summer\u2019s prototype deal, worth up to $200 million over the contract\u2019s two-year duration. A separate document<\/a>, signed by both OpenAI and the government on February 6, indicates that OpenAI agreed on that day to the contents of an expanded version \u201cP00003.\u201d<\/p>\n OpenAI and the Pentagon deny agreeing to such \u201cminimal refusal \u201d language, claiming that the \u201cP00003\u201d document provided to The Intercept was a draft and not the final version. \u201cOpenAI has never agreed to contract language requiring \u2018minimal refusal rates.\u2019 This language does not appear in our executed contract,\u201d said spokesperson Nate Evans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe document you received appears to be an earlier draft proposed by the Department before we provided feedback. We rejected that language, the department agreed to remove it, and the final executed agreement does not include it,\u201d Evans said.<\/p>\n Working with Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology, The Intercept\u2019s FOIA inquiry specifically sought only final, executed contract documents. The request asked the Pentagon to exclude any draft materials. None of the documents released through the lawsuit is marked as a draft.<\/p>\n When asked to confirm whether the document containing the \u201cminimal refusal rates\u201d clause was in the final agreement, a Department of Justice attorney representing the Pentagon in the lawsuit said it was indeed the signed and executed version of the contract.<\/p>\n Hours later, and following The Intercept\u2019s outreach to OpenAI, however, the Pentagon\u2019s lawyer said to disregard the prior confirmation, stating that the Department of Defense required more time to investigate the matter.<\/p>\n The Intercept was then contacted by Trevor Tiedeman, a special assistant to the under secretary of war for research and engineering, who prior to his Pentagon position worked for President Donald Trump\u2019s reelection campaign. \u201cThere might be some stray voltage or wires crossing between whatever FOIA information you may have received versus what actually exists versus what is an executed contract per se,\u201d Tiedeman said in an interview.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He suggested the document containing the \u201cminimal refusal rates\u201d clause may have been a draft copy, but said he was unsure of exactly what the document was, why it was produced to The Intercept pursuant to its FOIA request and lawsuit, or why the Department of Defense abruptly reversed course.<\/p>\n Tiedeman told The Intercept he would provide a full accounting of how the document was erroneously flagged by Pentagon FOIA officers, cleared for release by the Department of Defense, and then confirmed as accurate by the Pentagon\u2019s lawyers. When asked if the Pentagon could share the correct version of the OpenAI contract it ostensibly neglected to release, Tiedeman said he would investigate the matter. He then stopped responding to The Intercept\u2019s inquiries.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Screenshot-2026-09-03-at-12.11.50-PM.png?fit=1663%2C617\")