Pentagon presses Anthropic for unfettered Claude access or face penalties

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that the Pentagon will either cut ties and declare Anthropic a supply-chain risk or invoke the Defense Production Act to force Claude to meet military needs, with penalties for noncompliance; Anthropic says it’s willing to adjust usage policies but won’t enable mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, highlighting a high-stakes clash as Claude remains the Pentagon’s primary model for sensitive work and other AI vendors eye classified deployments.