Developing: Trump Orders Federal Ban on Anthropic AI After Company Refuses Pentagon Demand for Unfettered Access
President Donald Trump has ordered every federal agency to immediately stop using technology from AI developer Anthropic, escalating a confrontation between the White House and one of the world's most valuable artificial intelligence companies. In a series of posts on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote: "We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again!" The ban follows Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted access to the company's AI tools over concerns about their potential use in mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given Anthropic a deadline to comply and threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act and designate the company a "supply chain risk" — what appears to be the first time the US government has applied such a label to a domestic technology company. The confrontation carries significant implications for the broader AI industry, defense contracting, and the relationship between Silicon Valley and the federal government. Anthropic's Pentagon contract is worth approximately $200 million, a small fraction of the company's $380 billion valuation — but the precedent being set could reshape how every major tech company negotiates AI deployment with the US military.