A rchive Date
[ 28-02-2026 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[https://www.newsweek.com/claude-ai-anthropic-hegseth-war-defense-military-amodei-11590712
Trump Admin Accuses Anthropic of ‘Lying’ Over Claude AI
By Shane Croucher Breaking News Editor
Feb 27, 2026 at 03:24 AM EST
A senior official in the Department of Defense accused Anthropic of "lying" about how the U.S. military intends to use the private tech firm's Claude AI system.
The Pentagon wants Anthropic to remove some of the limits on how Claude can be used by the military and has threatened to cut it from their systems and designate the company a “supply chain risk” if it does not accede to the demands by a Friday deadline, following talks between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the firm's co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei.
The U.S. used Claude as part of the daring operation to capture then-Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, from his Caracas compound early January, The Wall Street Journal first reported. Although the U.S. has started deploying AI in military operations, it has not fully integrated AI into all of its systems and planning.
Amodei said he will not allow Claude to be used by the military for "mass domestic surveillance" or "fully autonomous weapons". He said Anthropic is resisting the Department of Defense's demand to "remove safeguards" in both those use cases.
"Anthropic is lying," Under Secretary of War Emil Michael said in a post on X, replying to Amodei's statement, adding that the military "doesn’t do mass surveillance as that is already illegal."
"What we are talking about is allowing our warfighters to use AI without having to call Dario Amodei for permission to shoot down...enemy drone swarms that would kill Americans," Michael said.
In a separate post, Michael accused Amodei of having "a God-complex" and wanting "to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation’s safety at risk."
A spokesperson for Anthropic told Newsweek in a statement: "The contract language we received from the Department of War made virtually no progress on preventing Claude's use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons.
"New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will. Despite DOW's recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months.
"We remain ready to continue talks and committed to operational continuity for the Department and America's warfighters."
The Trump administration rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, though a formal change of name requires an act of Congress.
Amodei had defended Anthropic's role, saying it "worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community."
"I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries," Amodei said.
He added: "Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.
"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do."
Three other AI labs are also in talks with the Pentagon about how much control the military will have over their models, Axios previously reported. The Department of Defense also has contracts with OpenAI, Google and xAI.
Both Russia and Ukraine are leading the way in using AI in active combat to lock onto targets, control drones and overcome jamming. It's also used to gather and sift through intelligence and vast amounts of information more quickly than humans can.
While AI has its obvious benefits, it must be treated with caution, too. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking at the United Nations in September, said the world was now seeing the "most destructive arms race in human history, because this time it includes artificial intelligence."
"It’s only a matter of time - not much - before drones are fighting drones, attacking critical infrastructure and attacking people all by themselves—fully autonomous and no human involved except the few who control AI [systems]," the Ukrainian leader said.
Updated, 2/27/26, 10:19 a.m. ET: A comment from an Anthropic spokesperson was added.
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