Trump Says US Is Cutting Off Anthropic for Refusing to Drop AI Safeguards

Gizmodo · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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President Donald Trump unleashed an all-caps screed against Anthropic on Friday, threatening criminal consequences for the AI company if it didn’t comply with his demands. The president is upset that Anthropic has refused to drop safeguards in Claude that prohibit the Department of Defense from using its AI model for domestic surveillance or completely autonomous weapons systems. “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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given Anthropic an ultimatum to drop all safeguards or be labeled a “supply chain risk,” something that’s never happened to an American company before. Hegseth also threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act, which would theoretically allow the U.S. government to demand that those safeguards be stripped. The president went on to describe the people at Anthropic as “leftwing nut jobs” and made a bizarre claim that the AI company was putting American lives in danger. “The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War [sic], 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,” wrote Trump. There’s nothing in U.S. law that requires a private company to adjust its terms of service to make the Defense Department happy, as long as they’re not violating sanctions. “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!” wrote Trump. And then came the big caveat. Trump wrote that they’d be given six months for a “phase out period,” which sounds an awful lot like the president just pushed the deadline back rather than actually banishing Anthropic from military work. “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,” Trump wrote. The Pentagon had given Anthropic a deadline of 5:01 p.m. ET on Friday to comply but the AI company wrote a letter on Thursday saying it would not give in. Trump was obviously not happy with that and appeared to be giving the official response for the entire military in his post to Truth Social. “WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI 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!” wrote Trump. It’s unclear if Trump has made a final decision on listing Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” but it would be a startling escalation that would likely ban Anthropic from all government work but also force any Anthropic customers with government contracts to cut ties. Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia who’s the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a statement Friday calling Trump’s rhetoric inflammatory and said that it raises serious questions about “whether national security decisions are being driven by careful analysis or political considerations.” “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s efforts to intimidate and disparage a leading American company – potentially as the pretext to steer contracts to a preferred vendor whose model a number of federal agencies have already identified as a reliability, safety, and security threat – pose an enormous risk to U.S. defense readiness and the willingness of the U.S. private sector and academia to work with the [Intelligence Community] and DoD, consistent with their own values and legal ethics,” Warner said. “Indeed, Secretary Hegseth’s loud insistence on the sufficiency of an ‘all lawful purposes’ standard provides cold comfort against the backdrop of Pentagon leadership that has routinely sidelined career military attorneys and challenged longstanding norms and rules regarding lethal force.” This is a breaking news story and will be updated with further information…