Overview
- U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an ultimatum expiring Friday evening for Anthropic to relax its user terms or face blacklisting.
- The Pentagon seeks the freedom to decide how it employs Anthropic’s models, while the company maintains bans on mass surveillance and autonomous weapon use.
- Officials have warned they could also restrict other defense contractors from working with Anthropic as additional leverage.
- Anthropic previously secured Pentagon work worth up to $200 million and its Claude model was approved for the most secret military networks.
- Reporting linked Claude’s use via Palantir to a January operation in Caracas targeting Nicolás Maduro, a disclosure that heightened tensions; Anthropic denies objecting to that use.