In a dramatic escalation of the standoff between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, President Donald Trump issued a direct order Friday afternoon directing all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic's Claude AI. The move, announced via Truth Social, comes after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to sign an updated agreement that would authorize "any lawful use" of the company's technology - including mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. The presidential directive marks the first time an AI company has been effectively banned from government contracts over ethical objections to military applications.
Anthropic just became the first major AI company to face direct presidential action over its refusal to bend on military ethics. Trump's Friday afternoon post on Truth Social didn't mince words, accusing the company behind Claude of attempting to "STRONG-ARM" the Pentagon and directing federal agencies to "IMMEDIATELY CEASE" all use of its products.
The flashpoint is a January memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requiring AI contractors to agree to "any lawful use" of their technology. For Anthropic, that language crosses a red line CEO Dario Amodei won't cross. According to reporting from The Verge, accepting those terms would greenlight the US military's use of Claude for mass domestic surveillance programs and lethal autonomous weapons systems.
Amodei's stance has frustrated some tech workers across the industry who view cooperation with defense agencies as both patriotic duty and lucrative business opportunity. But Anthropic has staked its reputation on AI safety and responsible development since its 2021 founding by former OpenAI executives. The company's constitutional AI approach builds ethical constraints directly into Claude's architecture, making unrestricted military use fundamentally incompatible with its core product philosophy.
The presidential order puts immediate pressure on federal agencies that have adopted Claude for everything from document analysis to customer service chatbots. While the Pentagon's existing contracts with , , and remain intact, 's ban creates operational headaches for departments that built workflows around its technology.
