Pentagon gives Anthropic Friday deadline to remove AI safeguards

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has given AI company Anthropic until Friday evening to loosen restrictions on its AI model, Claude, or risk serious consequences, according to a report by Axios.

The warning came during a tense meeting on Tuesday between Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. The Pentagon wants broader access to Claude, including the ability to use it for any lawful military purpose without the company’s current safeguards.

If Anthropic refuses, the U.S. Department of Defence is considering two major steps: cutting off its contract and declaring the company a “supply chain risk,” or invoking the Defence Production Act, a law that allows the government to force companies to prioritise national security needs.

According to Axios, Claude is currently the only AI model being used inside the military’s most sensitive classified systems. Yet, as Anthropic positions itself as the safety-first AI leader, it wants to ensure, in particular, that its technology is not used for the mass surveillance of Americans or to operate fully autonomous weapons.

In the meeting, Anthropic reportedly continued to strike a conciliatory tone after the meeting. "During the conversation, Dario expressed appreciation for the Department's work and thanked the Secretary for his service," an Anthropic spokesperson said. "We continued good-faith conversations about our usage policy to ensure Anthropic can continue to support the government's national security mission in line with  what our models can reliably and responsibly do.”

Hegseth reportedly told Amodei that he will not allow a private company to dictate how the military makes operational decisions. In the same breath, a senior Defence official said the meeting was "not warm and fuzzy at all." Another source told Axios it remained "cordial" with no voices raised on either side, and that Hegseth praised Claude to Amodei.

What happens if the Pentagon cuts ties with Anthropic

The report mentioned that if the Pentagon cuts off the contract with Anthropic, it has to have a replacement ready for Claude, which is currently the only model used in classified systems.  

One source familiar with the discussions said that right now, it appears Claude is ahead of the others in several applications relevant to the military, such as offensive cyber capabilities. The one source said Gemini is seen as a potential replacement if and when a deal is reached. That would require Google to let the Pentagon use its model for "all lawful purposes," the same terms that Anthropic rejected.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been speeding up conversations with OpenAI and Google about moving their models — already available for unclassified uses — into classified systems, sources tell Axios.

Elon Musk's xAI also recently signed a contract to bring its model, Grok, into classified settings, though it's unclear whether it would be able to fully replace Claude.