Hegseth<\/a> summoned Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei to Washington for a meeting on Tuesday. During tense talks, the defence secretary threatened to cut the company out of the department\u2019s supply chain or to invoke the Defense Production Act, a cold war-era measure enabling the president to control domestic industry in the interest of national defence, said a person with knowledge of the talks. <\/p>\nAnthropic had until 5.01pm on Friday \u201cto get on board or not\u201d with Hegseth\u2019s terms, said a senior Pentagon official.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they don\u2019t get on board, [Hegseth] will ensure the Defense Production Act is invoked on Anthropic, compelling them to be used by the Pentagon regardless of if they want to or not,\u201d the official said. The defence department would also label Anthropic \u201ca supply chain risk\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t lead tactical ops by exception,\u201d the official added, claiming \u201cthis has nothing to do with mass surveillance and autonomous weapons being used\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anthropic said it had continued with \u201cgood-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government\u2019s national security mission in line with what our models can reliably and responsibly do\u201d.<\/p>\n
The $380bn start-up could take legal action if Hegseth follows through on his ultimatum, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
The disagreement threatens to widen a faultline between the White House and one of the US\u2019s leading AI labs.<\/p>\n
Anthropic has pushed for tighter regulation of AI and Amodei has repeatedly warned of the risks of the technology. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and his advisers have promoted a light-touch regulatory framework.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s AI tsar David Sacks has derided Anthropic as \u201cwoke\u201d and last October accused the $380bn company of \u201crunning a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering\u201d. <\/p>\n
Those attacks echo criticisms from Elon Musk, who Sacks last year described as \u201ca good friend\u201d. Sacks worked with Musk at PayPal and has invested in xAI and other Musk groups. Sacks divested those positions when he was appointed to his government role.<\/p>\n
But the Pentagon has relied on Anthropic for AI technology. The San Francisco-based company\u2019s Claude tool has until recently been the only model working on classified missions as a result of its partnership with Palantir.<\/p>\n
Hegseth is negotiating with AI labs, including Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk\u2019s xAI, to replace Anthropic and integrate their technology into classified military systems. <\/p>\n
The senior Pentagon official said Musk\u2019s Grok \u201cis on board with being used in a classified setting, while the rest of the companies are close\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cutting Anthropic from the Pentagon supply chain is an extreme measure typically reserved for companies linked to foreign adversaries. But at the same time, deploying the DPA would suggest Anthropic\u2019s technology is critical to Pentagon operations. <\/p>\n
Invoking the DPA would allow the Pentagon to make use of Anthropic\u2019s tools without an agreement. <\/p>\n
The act gives the administration the ability to \u201callocate materials, services and facilities\u201d for national defence. The Trump and Biden administrations used the act to address a shortage of medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump has also used the DPA to order an increase in the US\u2019s production of critical minerals. <\/p>\n
The Pentagon has pushed for open-ended use of AI technology, aiming to expand the set of tools at its disposal to counter threats and to undertake military operations.<\/p>\n
The department released its AI strategy last month, with Hegseth saying in a memo that \u201cAI-enabled warfare and AI-enabled capability development will redefine the character of military affairs over the next decade\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added the US military \u201cmust build on its lead\u201d over foreign adversaries to make soldiers \u201cmore lethal and efficient\u201d, and that the AI race was \u201cfuelled by the accelerating pace\u201d of innovation coming from the private sector.<\/p>\n
Anthropic has expressed particular concern about its models being used for lethal missions that do not have a human in the loop, arguing that state of the art AI models are not reliable enough to be trusted in those contexts, said people familiar with the negotiations. <\/p>\n
It had also pushed for new rules to govern the use of AI models for mass domestic surveillance, even where that was legal under current regulations, they added.<\/p>\n
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![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/images.ft.com\/v3\/image\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net%2Fproduction%2Fe33427.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA decision to cut Anthropic from the defence department\u2019s supply chain would have significant ramifications for national security work and the company, which has a $200mn contract with the department. <\/p>\n
It would also have an impact on partners, including Palantir, that make use of Anthropic\u2019s models. <\/p>\n
Claude was used in the US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro in January. That mission prompted queries from Anthropic about the exact manner in which its model was used, said people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n
A person with knowledge of Tuesday\u2019s meeting said Amodei had stressed to Hegseth that his company had never objected to legitimate military operations. <\/p>\n
The defence department declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to cut Anthropic from his department\u2019s supply chain unless it agrees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-444585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}