Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to a meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday morning. They are set to discuss the military’s use of the Claude artificial intelligence system.
This meeting follows the Pentagon’s threat to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk.” That designation is typically applied to foreign adversaries. The threat came after Anthropic refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its technology for the mass surveillance of American citizens or for developing weapons that operate without human control.
Anthropic signed a two hundred million dollar contract with the Department of Defense last summer. The Claude AI was reportedly used during the January 3 special operations raid that led to the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. That event brought the underlying tensions between the company and the Pentagon into public view.
A source indicates that Secretary Hegseth is presenting Amodei with an ultimatum: cooperate or face banishment. It is unclear if this is a bluff, as replacing Anthropic would be a significant and difficult undertaking. However, the stakes are very real. An official supply chain risk designation would immediately void Anthropic’s existing contract and compel other Pentagon partners to stop using Claude entirely.