Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has reportedly been summoned to the Pentagon by Defence Secretary
Pete Hegseth for a meeting. Sources claim that this meeting will be anything but routine. In a statement to Axios, a senior official from the US Department of Defence said,
The meeting centres on terms for military use of Anthropic’s Claude, the only AI model currently available in the military’s classified systems and the one used for sensitive defence and intelligence work.
The Pentagon, while unwilling to lose access to Claude, is said to be furious with Anthropic for refusing to lift its safeguards fully.
The two sides appear to be heading into the meeting at an impasse, with an Anthropic spokesperson saying the company is
MeanwhileUS Department of Defence officials say negotiations have shown no progress and are on the verge of breaking down, the Axios report noted.
What Anthropic said about the Pentagon meeting with Pete Hegseth
Anthropic has said it is willing to loosen its usage restrictions but wants to draw a firm line around two areas: the mass surveillance of Americans and the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
The company
a spokesperson said. However, the Pentagon has pushed back against having to clear individual uses with the company and has demanded that all AI labs make their models available for
The dispute has escalated to the point where the Pentagon has threatened to declare Anthropic a
which would not only void its contracts but also force other companies working with the Pentagon to certify they are not using Claude in those workflows.
Defence officials are also discussing other potential tools to pressure Anthropic, with a Defence official saying Hegseth would effectively be presenting Amodei with an ultimatum at the upcoming meeting.
Replacing Anthropic would be a considerable task, given how deeply entrenched it is in military systems and the fact that other AI labs currently have less capable models.
Amodei has been vocal about the risks of AI and has positioned Anthropic as a safety-focused company. Officials have described a culture clash between Hegseth’s Pentagon and the Silicon Valley firm.
a senior Pentagon official said. Anthropic is not alone in its concerns, as broader questions remain about whether US law has kept pace with AI’s potential to expand surveillance capabilities and about the risks of entrusting AI to power weapons systems.
The feud between the Pentagon and Anthropic was further strained after Claude was used in the raid on Venezuela’s ex-president, Nicolas Maduro, in January. Leading the meeting from the Pentagon side will be Hegseth, Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg and Under Secretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, who has been heading negotiations with Anthropic and three other AI model-makers. However, Anthropic declined to name its delegation.
