Earlier today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared on X that he’s directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk. This motion follows months of negotiations that reached an impasse over two exceptions we requested to the lawful use of our AI model, Claude: the mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.
We have now not yet received direct communication from the Department of War or the White House on the status of our negotiations.
We have now tried in good faith to achieve an agreement with the Department of War, making clear that we support all lawful uses of AI for national security except for the 2 narrow exceptions above. To the very best of our knowledge, these exceptions haven’t affected a single government mission thus far.
We held to our exceptions for 2 reasons. First, we don’t consider that today’s frontier AI models are reliable enough to be utilized in fully autonomous weapons. Allowing current models to be utilized in this fashion would endanger America’s warfighters and civilians. Second, we consider that mass domestic surveillance of Americans constitutes a violation of fundamental rights.
Designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk could be an unprecedented motion—one historically reserved for US adversaries, never before publicly applied to an American company. We’re deeply saddened by these developments. As the primary frontier AI company to deploy models within the US government’s classified networks, Anthropic has supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of continuous to accomplish that.
We consider this designation would each be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the federal government.
No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. We’ll challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.
What this implies for our customers
Secretary Hegseth has implied this designation would restrict anyone who does business with the military from doing business with Anthropic. The Secretary doesn’t have the statutory authority to back up this statement. Legally, a supply chain risk designation under 10 USC 3252 can only extend to using Claude as a part of Department of War contracts—it cannot affect how contractors use Claude to serve other customers.
In practice, this implies:
- In the event you are a person customer or hold a business contract with Anthropic, your access to Claude—through our API, claude.ai, or any of our products—is totally unaffected.
- In the event you are a Department of War contractor, this designation—if formally adopted—would only affect your use of Claude on Department of War contract work. Your use for every other purpose is unaffected.
Our sales and support teams are standing by to reply any questions you will have.
We’re deeply grateful to our users, and to the industry peers, policymakers, veterans, and members of the general public who’ve voiced their support in recent days. Thanks. Above all else, our priorities are to guard our customers from any disruption brought on by these extraordinary events and to work with the Department of War to make sure a smooth transition—for them, for our troops, and for American military operations.
