Anthropic CEO Stands Firm as Pentagon Deadline Looms Over AI Model Safeguards

Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said Thursday that he cannot in good conscience accede to the Pentagon's request to give the military unrestricted access to its AI systems. Amodei wrote that Anthropic understands the Department of War makes military decisions, not private companies. He stated that in a narrow set of cases AI can undermine democratic values and that some uses exceed what today's technology can safely and reliably do. The cases are mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons with no human in the loop. The Pentagon maintains it should be able to use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes. Amodei's statement comes less than 24 hours ahead of a Friday 5:01 p.m. deadline set by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. An Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch that Amodei's statement does not mean the firm is walking away from negotiations and that it continues to engage in good faith. The contract language received overnight made virtually no progress on preventing the specified uses, the spokesperson said. New language framed as a compromise included provisions allowing the safeguards to be disregarded at will. The Department of Defense has attempted to force compliance by labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk or invoking the Defense Production Act. Amodei pointed out the contradiction, noting one approach labels the company a security risk while the other treats Claude as essential to national security. Anthropic is currently the only frontier AI lab with classified-ready systems for the military, though the Department of Defense is reportedly getting xAI ready for the job. Amodei said the company's strong preference is to continue serving the Department and warfighters with the two requested safeguards in place. He added that if the Department chooses to offboard Anthropic, the company will work to enable a smooth transition to avoid disruption to military missions.