U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he is directing every federal agency to immediately cease use of artificial intelligence technology developed by Anthropic, with a six-month phaseout for the Defense Department and other agencies currently using the company’s products.
“I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The move follows a weeks-long dispute between the Pentagon and the San Francisco-based AI startup over concerns about how the military could deploy artificial intelligence in warfare.
Anthropic, which holds a $200 million Pentagon contract, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s directive stops short of earlier Pentagon threats to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel compliance. Defense officials had also considered designating Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a label previously applied to companies linked to foreign adversaries.
However, Trump warned he would take further action if Anthropic does not cooperate during the phaseout period, saying he would use “the full power of the presidency” to ensure compliance, with “major civil and criminal consequences” if necessary.
Weapons and surveillance concerns
The decision comes as Anthropic competes aggressively to sell advanced AI systems to commercial and government clients, particularly in national security, ahead of a widely anticipated initial public offering. The company has said it has not finalized a decision on going public.
The dispute has also highlighted tensions over guardrails on military AI use. Anthropic has sought assurances that its models would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance. The Pentagon has said it has no interest in those applications.
Anthropic was the first frontier AI lab to deploy its models on classified networks via Amazon Web Services and the first to build customized models for national security clients, according to the company. Its Claude system is used across parts of the intelligence community and the armed services.
The standoff echoes earlier friction between Silicon Valley and Washington. In 2018, Google employees protested the Pentagon’s use of AI to analyze drone footage, prompting the company to withdraw from the project. Since then, major technology firms including Amazon and Microsoft have expanded their defense work, and several CEOs pledged cooperation with the Trump administration last year.
Concerns over so-called “killer robots” continue to animate human rights and technology activists, even as conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza increasingly feature automated systems on the battlefield.