Scoop: Anthropic CEO apologizes for leaked memo criticizing Trump
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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Photo: Prakash Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Pentagon has formally designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, as CEO Dario Amodei apologized Thursday for a leaked memo criticizing the Trump administration.
Why it matters: The dispute has raised fundamental questions over AI governance and cast a shadow over the industry's relationship with Washington.
- Amodei won a legion of fans — and Anthropic's Claude a flood of new users — for his initial strong stance in a dispute over how AI could be used by the military.
State of play: Despite the apology, Anthropic still plans to sue over the Pentagon's designation of the company as a supply chain risk, which Anthropic says is narrow and only restricts certain activities.
"It was a difficult day for the company, and I apologize for the tone of the post," a new blog post from Amodei said Thursday, referring to an explosive internal memo to staff that put negotiations in jeopardy.
- "It does not reflect my careful or considered views. It was also written six days ago and is an out of date assessment of the current situation," Amodei said in the post, a copy of which was obtained by Axios.
- Amodei says Anthropic did not leak the post or ask anyone else to do it.
- The company's "most important" goal now, he added, "is making sure that our war fighters and national security experts are not deprived of the important tools in the middle of war."
The other side: "DOW officially informed Anthropic leadership the company and its products are deemed a supply chain risk, effective immediately," a senior Pentagon official said in a statement.
- "The military will not allow a vendor to insert itself into the chain of command by restricting the lawful use of a critical capability and put our warfighters at risk."
Others in the industry viewed the Pentagon's supply chain designation as narrow as well.
- "Our lawyers have studied the designation and have concluded that Anthropic products, including Claude, can remain available to our customers—other than the Department of War—through platforms such as M365, GitHub, and Microsoft's AI Foundry and that we can continue to work with Anthropic on non-defense related projects," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Tension point: As of Thursday night, the Pentagon was still actively using Claude to provide support for military operations, including in Iran, according to a source familiar.
Behind the scenes: The Pentagon's deadline for Anthropic to adhere to its "all lawful purposes" standard came and went last Friday at 5:01pm, but days passed and no formal designation of a supply chain risk had been sent.
- OpenAI announced a deal with the Pentagon soon after the deadline passed, but it was quickly criticized as lacking the proper protections for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, prompting CEO Sam Altman to come back with stronger language on Tuesday.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from Microsoft.
