Anthropic divides Silicon Valley and Hollywood, here are all those didn't with CEO Dario Amodei in company's battle with Donald Trump

The standoff between the US government and AI safety company Anthropic reached a conclusion on Friday (February 27), with President Donald Trump ordering all federal agencies to immediately stop using Anthropic's technology.

The CEO of AI company, Dario Amodei, has termed the Pentagon’s action “retaliatory and punitive”, vowing to fight back in court. The standoff has drawn in some of the biggest names in the technology industry, with rivals, investors, celebrities and lawmakers lining up to take Anthropic’s side.

Anthropic vs US government: How it started

The crisis had been building all week. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a deadline – 5:01pm on Friday – to agree to give the Pentagon full, unrestricted access to its AI model Claude, or lose the company's $200 million government contract.

Anthropic refused. The company has maintained throughout that its tools should not be used for two things: mass surveillance of American citizens and for fully autonomous weapons systems capable of killing without human oversight.

The Pentagon accused the company of placing “Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.”Elon Musk joined the Pentagon, backing the US Department of War's criticism of the AI company.

Reposting a post by Under Secretary of War Emil Michael on X, Musk wrote: “Anthropic hates Western Civilization.” This isn't the first time Musk has gone after Anthropic. Just weeks ago, he called the company's AI “misanthropic and evil” and personally attacked Anthropic philosopher Amanda Askell over her role in shaping Claude's ethics.

What Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Katy Perry said

In a display of solidarity, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, singer-songwriter Katy Perry, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and others publicly backed Anthropic’s stand.

Sam Altman says he trusts Anthropic

“For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company and I think they really do care about safety,” Altman said. “I don't personally think that the Pentagon should be threatening DPA against these companies,” he added, telling OpenAI staff he shared Anthropic's "red lines" on military AI use and wanted to help de-escalate the situation.Hours after the Friday deadline passed, Altman announced that OpenAI had reached its own deal with the Pentagon to deploy its models on classified networks — with safety guardrails intact.

Ilya Sutskever says good Anthropic did not back down

“It's extremely good that Anthropic has not backed down, and it's significant that OpenAI has taken a similar stance. In the future, there will be much more challenging situations of this nature, and it will be critical for the relevant leaders to rise up to the occasion, for fierce competitors to put their differences aside,” said Sutskever, who is now leading his own AI venture.

Vinod Khosla says he likes Dario Amodei

Prominent investor Vinod Khosla said he admired Anthropic's principled stand, even as he disagreed with the underlying position on autonomous weapons. “Personal view: I admire @AnthropicAI sticking by their principles but disagree with the principle itself. Putin won’t fight fair so we should have autonomous AI weapons for sure,” Khosla said in a post.“I truly admire people like @DarioAmodei who stick to principles,” he said in a separate post..

Katy Perry says ‘done’

Katy Perry posted “done” with a screenshot of her subscribing to Claude AI's Pro plan (annual at $214.99), circled in a heart – widely seen as her showing support for the company by becoming a paying user.

Her post follows the news that the Trump administration has banned Anthropic from all US government use.

Senator Mark Kelly

Senator Mark Kelly was among the lawmakers to speak out. “Anthropic didn't want their AI tech used for surveillance on Americans or autonomous weapons strikes. Guess what the Trump administration did? Threatened them and then cut off all work with the federal government. This is dumb and dangerous,” he said.

VC Roy Bahat shares video of Anthropic’s San Francisco office

Roy Bahat shared a video clip of a sidewalk chalk art outside Anthropic's San Francisco office.

It shows messages like “Thank you for standing up,” “We love you,” and American flags drawn in support of the company's ethical stance.

President Donald Trump acts, Hegseth escalates matter

After the deadline passed, Trump signed an order directing every US federal agency to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology – providing a six-month window to phase it out of critical military and intelligence work. Trump said in a post on X:THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military.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. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic's technology. We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic's products, at various levels. 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.WE will decide the fate of our Country - NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left Al company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMPHegseth followed by formally designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security” — a label that has historically been reserved for companies from adversarial nations, most notably China's Huawei.

This means that any contractor, supplier or partner has been barred from doing business with the US military from conducting commercial activity with Anthropic.Anthropic hits back by responding with a detailed public statement, saying it would challenge the designation in court. "No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons," the company said.