
Anthropic refuses to bend to Pentagon on AI safeguards as dispute nears deadline
ABC News
A public showdown between the Trump administration and Anthropic is hitting an impasse as military officials demand the artificial intelligence company bend its ethical policies by Friday or risk damaging its business
A public showdown between the Trump administration and Anthropic is hitting an impasse as military officials demand the artificial intelligence company bend its ethical policies by Friday or risk damaging its business.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei drew a sharp red line 24 hours before the deadline, declaring his company “cannot in good conscience accede” to the Pentagon’s final demand to allow unrestricted use of its technology.
Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, can afford to lose a defense contract. But the ultimatum this week from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posed broader risks at the peak of the company's meteoric rise from a little-known computer science research lab in San Francisco to one of the world’s most valuable startups.
If Amodei doesn't budge, military officials have warned they will not just pull Anthropic's contract but also “deem them a supply chain risk,” a designation typically stamped on foreign adversaries that could derail the company's critical partnerships with other businesses.
And if Amodei were to cave, he could lose trust in the booming AI industry, particularly from top talent drawn to the company for its promises of responsibly building better-than-human AI that, without safeguards, could pose catastrophic risks.













