Anthropic’s CEO explains why he took on the Pentagon

 

Dario Amodei

 

Dario Amodei (born 1983) is the CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, the AI safety and research company behind the Claude large language model series.

OpenAI Tenure: Before founding Anthropic, Amodei was the Vice President of Research at OpenAI, where he played a pivotal role in the development of GPT-2 and GPT-3.

Previous Roles: He also held research positions at Google (focused on natural language processing and safety) and Baidu, where he helped lead the Deep Speech 2 project.

Education: He holds a PhD in Physics from Princeton University and completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Stanford University (after transferring from Caltech).

Founding Vision: Amodei co-founded Anthropic in 2021 with several former OpenAI colleagues, including his sister Daniela Amodei. The move was driven by a desire to prioritize AI safety, steerability, and interpretability over rapid commercialization.

Scaling Laws: He was one of the early researchers to document "scaling laws," observing that AI performance improves predictably as compute and training data increase.

Recent Predictions (2026): Amodei has recently gained attention for his "apocaloptimist" views, predicting that AI could reach a level equivalent to a "country of geniuses in a data center" within the next few years.

Economic Impact: He warns that AI could significantly disrupt up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs in fields like law and finance by 2030, while simultaneously boosting annual GDP growth by 10-20%.

As of early 2026, Anthropic's annualized revenue is reported to be approximately $14 billion, with the company planning to spend $50 billion on AI infrastructure in the U.S.. Amodei continues to advocate for transparency legislation and international cooperation to manage the national security risks of advanced AI.

On March 9, 2026, the AI firm Anthropic filed a high-stakes lawsuit against the Trump administration after the Pentagon officially designated the company a "supply chain risk". This designation effectively blacklists the company from federal contracts and is the first time such a label has been applied to a U.S.-based firm.

 

Anthropic sues US government for calling it a risk

On March 9, 2026, the AI firm Anthropic filed a high-stakes lawsuit against the Trump administration after the Pentagon officially designated the company a "supply chain risk". This designation effectively blacklists the company from federal contracts and is the first time such a label has been applied to a U.S.-based firm.

 

Core of the Dispute

The conflict stems from Anthropic's refusal to grant the U.S. military "unfettered" or "unrestricted" use of its AI models, specifically Claude. Anthropic maintains "red lines" regarding two specific use cases:

Mass Surveillance: Refusal to allow the use of its technology for the mass surveillance of U.S. citizens.

Autonomous Weapons: Refusal to allow the use of its technology in fully autonomous lethal weapons systems.

 

Government Retaliation

In response to these restrictions, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled the company a supply chain risk, and President Donald Trump issued a directive for all federal agencies to "immediately cease" using Anthropic's technology. The administration has publicly criticized Anthropic as a "radical left, woke company" for imposing these safety guardrails.

 

The Lawsuit Details

Anthropic’s legal challenge, filed in both California and Washington D.C., characterizes the government's move as "unprecedented and unlawful" retaliation.

Legal Arguments: Anthropic argues that the designation violates its First Amendment rights to protected speech (referring to its stated safety principles) and exceeds the President's statutory authority.

Financial Impact: The company states the blacklisting could jeopardize multiple billions of dollars in revenue for 2026 and cause irreparable harm to its reputation as a trusted partner.

Industry Support: Nearly 40 employees from rivals Google and OpenAI have filed a court brief in support of Anthropic, backing the need for AI safety guardrails.

 

Current Status

Anthropic is seeking an immediate court order to vacate the "supply chain risk" designation and halt the administration's ban. While the Pentagon has declined to comment on active litigation, the White House is reportedly preparing a formal executive order to further solidify the exclusion of Anthropic from the federal government.

Anthropic sues US government for calling it a risk

Anthropic sues US government for calling it a risk

11 hours ago

Kali Hays

Technology reporter

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq571w5vllxo

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic has filed a first of its kind lawsuit against the US government over claims that it is a "supply chain risk".

 

The AI firm's chief executive Dario Amodei and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have been publicly rowing due to the company's refusal to allow the military unfettered use of its AI tools.

 

The Pentagon retaliated by making Anthropic the first US company to be labelled a "supply chain risk", but Anthropic said in its lawsuit on Monday against a list of US government agencies that the government's action was "unprecedented and unlawful".

 

A spokesman for the US Department of Defense declined to comment citing a policy on active litigation.

 

"The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech", Anthropic wrote. "No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here."

 

Anthropic's lawsuit is against President Donald Trump's executive office; several government leaders, including Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick; and 16 government agencies, including the Department of War, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy.

 

The Department of War is a secondary name given by Trump for the Department of Defense.

 

Liz Huston, a spokeswoman for the White House, told the BBC that Anthropic is "a radical left, woke company" attempting to control military activity.

 

"Under the Trump Administration, our military will obey the United States Constitution – not any woke AI company's terms of service," Huston said.

 

Anthropic argued against this in its legal complaint filed Monday morning in California federal court.

 

The company said that Hegseth demanded it remove any usage restrictions from its defence contract, despite limitations on "lethal autonomous warfare" and "surveillance of Americans en masse" always having been part of its government contracts.

 

Anthropic has been used by the US government and military since 2024 and was the first advanced AI company to have its tools deployed in government agencies doing classified work.

 

'Public castigation'

Anthropic said that it did work with Hegseth on revising contract language in order to meet military use needs. While it was nearing a successful negotiation to continue working with the department that would include limitations regarding surveillance and weaponry, those talks were abruptly undercut.

 

Instead, the Department of Defense "met Anthropic's attempts at compromise with public castigation".

 

As Anthropic was negotiating with defence officials, Trump berated the company as run by "left wing nut jobs" and directed all government agencies to stop using Anthropic tools.

 

Hegseth quickly followed up on Trump's announcement by labeling Anthropic a "supply chain risk", meaning tools like Claude were suddenly considered not secure enough for government use. He also prohibited any company doing work with the government from using Anthropic tools.

 

Claude is one of the most popular AI tools in the world, with Claude Code being an almost ubiquitous part of work done by some of the biggest technology firms in the US, including Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.

 

Those companies also do work with the government. Last week, Microsoft, Google and Amazon said they would continue to use Claude outside of any work for defence agencies.

 

Nevertheless, Anthropic claims that it has been "irreparably" harmed as a result of Trump and Hegseth's comments.

 

"Current and future contracts with private parties are also in doubt, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars in the near-term", the company said. "On top of those immediate economic harms, Anthropic's reputation and core First Amendment freedoms are under attack."

 

Anthropic also noted the "chilling effect" on free speech that the retaliation by the Trump Administration is having on other entities.

 

But by Monday afternoon, nearly 40 Google and OpenAI employees had filed with the court a brief supporting Anthropic and its efforts to limit improper uses of AI, offering their expertise on the dangers posed the technology being used at scale.

 

"As a group, we are diverse in our politics and philosophies, but we are united in the conviction that today's frontier AI systems present risks when deployed to enable domestic mass surveillance or the operation of autonomous lethal weapons systems without human oversight, and that those risks require some kind of guardrails, whether via technical safeguards or usage restrictions," the signatories of the brief said.

 

Google and OpenAI are both considered rivals to Anthropic when it comes to AI tools, and both companies also have such tools in government use.

 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted last week to rushing through the company's new contract with the Department of Defense in the wake of Anthropic's fallout with the government.

 

Anthropic is not seeking monetary damages from its lawsuit, but it is asking the court to immediately declare that Trump's directive "exceeds the president's authority" and is in violation of the Constitution, and immediately reject its having been labelled as supply chain risk.

 

Carl Tobias, a chair at the University of Richmond School of Law, said that while a quick settlement of the lawsuit is possible, he expects the Trump Administration to take "a scorched earth" approach.

 

"Anthropic may very well win in federal court, but this government is not shy about appealing," Tobias said. "It will probably go to the Supreme Court."

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Is the US low on Missiles interceptors?

 

Is the US low on Missiles interceptors?

The United States is currently facing significant shortages of missile interceptors as of March 2026, primarily due to high-intensity conflicts in the Middle East. Experts and Pentagon officials have warned that sustained combat could exhaust high-end supplies within days or weeks.

 

Current Stockpile Status

THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense): Between 20% and 50% of the entire U.S. THAAD inventory may have been expended during recent 12-day conflicts with Iran.

Patriot (PAC-3 MSE): Reports indicate the U.S. currently has only about 25% of the Patriot interceptors required for its full military plans.

SM-3 (Standard Missile-3): Approximately 20% of the expected 2025 inventory was fired during engagements, raising concerns about long-term capacity.

Naval Interceptors (SM-2/SM-6): Roughly 200 interceptors were used defending against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea over a one-year period.

 

Key Challenges

Production vs. Usage Gap: The U.S. is expending interceptors at a rate that "vastly outpaces production". For example, Lockheed Martin produced 600 PAC-3 MSE interceptors in 2025, but regional allies reportedly expended over 800 in just three days.

High Replacement Cost: Advanced interceptors like THAAD cost approximately $15.5 million each, while the drones they often target (such as Iranian Shaheds) cost only $20,000 to $35,000.

Industrial Constraints: Increasing production is difficult due to long lead times, supply chain dependencies (including rare earth metals from China), and the transition to newer missile variants which sacrifices immediate capacity.

 

Conflicting Perspectives

While defense analysts and some Democratic lawmakers express "intense and alarmed" concerns about "dangerously low" stocks, President Donald Trump has dismissed these claims, stating that U.S. stockpiles have "never been higher or better" and that the supply is "virtually unlimited".