Trump Orders Federal Agencies to Dump 'Woke' Anthropic AI After Pentagon Dispute

President Donald Trump has directed all U.S. federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology developed by Anthropic, escalating a dispute between the AI company and the Pentagon over how the military uses the technology.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said agencies must “immediately cease” using Anthropic products, with a six-month phase-out period for departments that already use the company’s technology.

"The United States of America will never allow a radical left, woke company to dictate how our great military fights and wins wars!” Trump wrote. “That decision belongs to your commander-in-chief and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our military.

The directive follows Anthropic’s refusal on Thursday to remove safeguards preventing Claude from being used for “mass domestic surveillance” or “fully autonomous weapons,” after Pentagon officials demanded contractors allow their systems to be used for “any lawful use.”

“The left-wing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a disastrous mistake trying to strong-arm the Department of War and force them to obey their terms of service instead of our Constitution,” Trump wrote.

President Trump called the situation a threat to U.S. troops and national security.

“Their selfishness is putting American lives at risk, our troops in danger, and our national security in jeopardy,” Trump said.

Anthropic has resisted Pentagon demands to grant unrestricted military use of its models, while also recently walking back safety language in its Responsible Scaling Policy.

On Friday, CNBC reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is working to “help de-escalate” the situation. De-escalating the tension could be a heavy lift, however.

In his post, Trump said decisions affecting U.S. military operations must remain under presidential authority rather than "some out-of-control, radical left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real world is all about," he said.

“Anthropic better get their act together and be helpful during this phase-out period, or I will use the full power of the presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chimed in on the matter following Trump's post, offering similar comments regarding the decision and calling Anthropic's move a "a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon."

"I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security," Hegseth wrote on X. "Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service."

"America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech," he added. "This decision is final."

Following Trump's announcement, the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology commented on the move in a statement sent to Decrypt.

“The President is wielding the full weight of the federal government to blacklist a company for taking a narrowly-tailored, principled stance to restrict some of the most extreme uses of AI you could imagine—fully autonomous weapons and the mass surveillance of Americans," said CDT President and CEO Alexandra Givens.

"This action sets a dangerous precedent. It chills private companies’ ability to engage frankly with the government about appropriate uses of their technology, which is especially important in national security settings that so often have reduced public visibility," she added. "Retaliating against a company for setting tailored, principled conditions on its product’s use undermines basic market freedoms and makes us all less safe."

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to include comments from Hegseth and the CDT.