Elon Musk has waded into the escalating war of words between Anthropic and the Pentagon, backing the US Department of War’s criticism of the AI company. Reposting a post by Under Secretary of War Emil Michael on X, Musk wrote: “Anthropic hates Western Civilization. ” Musk’s post came in response to Michael’s claim that Anthropic had tried to scrub an older version of Claude’s constitution from the internet. Michael quoted a line from the previous document that read: “Choose the response that is least likely to be viewed as harmful or offensive to a non-western cultural tradition of any sort. ” The implication was clear—that Anthropic’s AI was trained to prioritize non-Western sensitivities over Western ones.
This isn’t the first time Musk has gone after Anthropic. Just weeks ago, he called the company’s AI “misanthropic and evil” and personally attacked Anthropic philosopher Amanda Askell over her role in shaping Claude’s ethics. But this time, his comments land in the middle of a high-stakes standoff between Anthropic and the US military that has a hard deadline of 5:01 PM ET on Friday.
Pentagon accuses Anthropic of lying
The Musk-Pentagon pile-on comes hours after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a roughly 800-word blog post laying out two red lines: no mass domestic surveillance and no fully autonomous weapons. Amodei said he “cannot in good conscience” agree to lift these safeguards, even if it means losing the military as a client.
Michael fired back almost immediately. In a post on X, he wrote: “Anthropic is lying. The @DeptofWar doesn’t do mass surveillance as that is already illegal. What we are talking about is allowing our warfighters to use AI without having to call @DarioAmodei for permission to shoot down enemy drone swarms that would kill Americans.” He used the hashtag #CallDario and later accused Amodei of having a “God complex.”
What Anthropic wants vs what Pentagon wants
At the heart of the dispute is a seemingly simple question: should the Pentagon be able to use Claude for “all lawful purposes” without restrictions? Anthropic says no—not when it comes to surveillance of Americans or weapons that fire without a human in the loop. The Pentagon says the military, not a private company, should decide how AI is used in operations.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell has warned that if Anthropic doesn’t comply by Friday evening, the Department of War will terminate its partnership and potentially label the company a “supply chain risk”—a designation typically reserved for adversary nations, not American companies.
Musk’s Anthropic criticism is part of a pattern
For Musk, the Anthropic bashing fits a broader pattern. He has repeatedly positioned his own AI company xAI—and its chatbot Grok—as the free-speech alternative to what he sees as overly cautious competitors. Notably, xAI is one of the companies that has already agreed to the Pentagon’s “all lawful purposes” policy for its AI models. With Anthropic now isolated in its refusal, Musk’s public jab doubles as a competitive play.
