President Trump has escalated Anthropic's dispute with the Defense Department with a social media post ordering the entire federal government purge the company's software from its systems.
In a post on Truth Social, the President called Anthropic a "radical left, woke" company and said he was directing all federal agencies to cease use of its technology "immediately." The move comes after a dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon over the AI firm's refusal to relax safeguards barring its models from use in mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
"The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution," Trump said, apparently referring to the part of the Constitution about spying on Americans with AI and letting autonomous weapons make targeting and firing decisions.
To be clear, neither party actually says the Pentagon intend to use Anthropic's AI for those purposes, but Anthropic's stance was enough to escalate tensions with the Defense Department and raise questions for agencies that had signed up for $1-for-a-year software deals that included Anthropic's AI.
Trump said in his post that he was giving agencies six months to phase out Anthropic's AI for something less woke - perhaps like Grok.
"Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow," Trump said.
Following the directive, the General Services Administration announced it is removing Anthropic from USAi.gov and its Multiple Award Schedule procurement vehicle.
It's not clear what level of official action the President's social media is intended to convey. It doesn't include any mention of the formal cancellation of Anthropic's up to $200 million Pentagon contract, though we can assume his directive to purge the company from federal systems would mean that the contract is probably void. It appears that, at the very least, the President has no intention of pressing Anthropic to conform to the DoD's demands via the Defense Production Act.
We reached out to Anthropic for comment and to the White House to determine if and when the President intended to issue a formal order canceling Anthropic. We'll update this story if we hear back. ®
Source: The register