Pentagon makes it clear to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei that they do not want anything to do with the company now; and tells everyone: Want to end all speculation, there is …

US Under Secretary of War Emil Michael has clarified that the Pentagon has no active negotiation with Claude-maker Anthropic. Hours after the department officially designated the AI company as ‘nation security risk’, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei shared an official statement where he said that the firm “had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days”.

Denying the statement, Emil Michael wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “I want to end all speculation: there is no active @DeptofWar negotiation with @AnthropicAI”.

What Anthropic CEO said about Pentagon talks

In the statement titled ‘Where things stand with the Department of War’, Amodei wrote:“I would like to reiterate that we had been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways we could serve the Department that adhere to our two narrow exceptions, and ways for us to ensure a smooth transition if that is not possible.

As we wrote on Thursday, we are very proud of the work we have done together with the Department, supporting frontline warfighters with applications such as intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more.

”“As we stated last Friday, we do not believe, and have never believed, that it is the role of Anthropic or any private company to be involved in operational decision-making—that is the role of the military.

Our only concerns have been our exceptions on fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, which relate to high-level usage areas, and not operational decision-making,” he further stated.

Anthropic -Pentagon public dispute

The dispute between Anthropic AI and Pentagon originates from the AI company refusing to lift its safeguard and let the military use it for "all lawful purposes." Despite being the only AI model running in the military's classified systems, the AI firm has consistently insisted on blocking Claude's use for what it calls the mass surveillance of Americans or to develop weapons that fire without human involvement.The Pentagon gave an ultimatum to the company on February 27 before announcing it a ‘supply chain risk’ this week. Calling the decision “retaliatory” and “punitive”, Anthropic CEO said that US President Trump disliked the company for not giving ‘dictator-style praise’. Recently, the company said that it is in talks with U.S. Department of Defense about the use of its AI models by the US military.