Anthropic says it will challenge Pentagon supply chain risk designation in court(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Anthropic says it will challenge Pentagon supply chain risk designation in court
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/anthropic-says-it-will-challenge-pentagons-supply-chain-risk-designation-court-2026-02-28/
41 comments
To this political faction, it’s different when the customer is the in-group.
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This isn’t parallel at all, and I didn’t realize that Anthropic was the member of any particular party.
Sorry I was a bit unclear - this was referencing the Administration not Anthropic.
The United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration, supported Phillips.[20][5] While the Department asserts that anti-discrimination laws are necessary to prevent businesses that provide goods and services from discriminating, these laws cannot be used to compel a business into expressing speech they do not agree with, nor used to provide goods and services with such expressions without the ability for the business to assert they do not agree with those expressions. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
The United States Department of Justice under the Trump administration, supported Phillips.[20][5] While the Department asserts that anti-discrimination laws are necessary to prevent businesses that provide goods and services from discriminating, these laws cannot be used to compel a business into expressing speech they do not agree with, nor used to provide goods and services with such expressions without the ability for the business to assert they do not agree with those expressions. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
> these laws cannot be used to compel a business into expressing speech they do not agree with
I don’t think they are preventing them. You can still buy some Anthropic. Heck, maybe you’re now doubly motivated to buy some out of spite. What Uncle Sam is saying is he doesn’t want anything to do with it. But Anthropic can produce whatever and others can buy it.
In their view just like businesses cannot be compelled so are the customers, they can’t be compelled to buy.
I don’t think they are preventing them. You can still buy some Anthropic. Heck, maybe you’re now doubly motivated to buy some out of spite. What Uncle Sam is saying is he doesn’t want anything to do with it. But Anthropic can produce whatever and others can buy it.
In their view just like businesses cannot be compelled so are the customers, they can’t be compelled to buy.
> You can still buy some Anthropic.
If they're designated a "supply chain risk", then any company that does any business with the military cannot be a customer. That includes basically all the largest companies, many of which have already adopted Claude. So the Pentagon is threatening Anthropic with terminating most of their private enterprise revenue and basically ruining their business model.
That's a little different than just denying someone government contracts.
If they're designated a "supply chain risk", then any company that does any business with the military cannot be a customer. That includes basically all the largest companies, many of which have already adopted Claude. So the Pentagon is threatening Anthropic with terminating most of their private enterprise revenue and basically ruining their business model.
That's a little different than just denying someone government contracts.
> If they're designated a "supply chain risk", then any company that does any business with the military cannot be a customer.
Wrong.
Companies with military contracts cannot rely on Anthropic-supplied products and services for those contracts. (Yes, the cabinet member who misrepresents his own title and name of his department also publicly misrepresented the legal consequences of the designation. It's almost like ignoring the law and just making things up is a pattern with him and his boss.)
Wrong.
Companies with military contracts cannot rely on Anthropic-supplied products and services for those contracts. (Yes, the cabinet member who misrepresents his own title and name of his department also publicly misrepresented the legal consequences of the designation. It's almost like ignoring the law and just making things up is a pattern with him and his boss.)
If you were a customer, what would you do? Keep paying for Claude but be extra careful about preventing all the people working on anything that might potentially be construed as related to the DoD work from using it, for fear of a retributive Hegseth? Or just use codex company-wide and not worry?
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/26/incoherent-hegseths...
> The designation, typically reserved for foreign firms with ties to U.S. adversaries, could ban companies that work with the government from partnering with Anthropic.
> “You’re telling everyone else who supplies to the DOD you cannot use Anthropic’s models, while also saying that the DOD must use Anthropic’s models.”
I wouldn't put anything past this administration in terms of twisting rules and acting in bad faith to excerpt as much leverage as possible. They do it all the time. It's basically a government of patent trolls threatening everyone with meritless lawsuits that are nonetheless extremely effective.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/26/incoherent-hegseths...
> The designation, typically reserved for foreign firms with ties to U.S. adversaries, could ban companies that work with the government from partnering with Anthropic.
> “You’re telling everyone else who supplies to the DOD you cannot use Anthropic’s models, while also saying that the DOD must use Anthropic’s models.”
I wouldn't put anything past this administration in terms of twisting rules and acting in bad faith to excerpt as much leverage as possible. They do it all the time. It's basically a government of patent trolls threatening everyone with meritless lawsuits that are nonetheless extremely effective.
> If you were a customer, what would you do?
If I was “one of the largest companies”, as was raised upthread as being impacted in all of their business, then I would be used to having many large public and private customers with different and conflicting contracting requirements and segregating support for those contracts, and for US defense contracts specifically, probably have a dedicated business unit for those that probably a subsidiary legal entity and which, in any case, is almost completely walled off in practice dedicate to defense contracts, provides all the shared services consumed by individual defense contracts independently of the parent corporation, and which adheres strictly to defense contracting rules and charges the compliance costs back to those defense contracts at a healthy profit, while having basically no impact on how the rest of the company does business.
If I was “one of the largest companies”, as was raised upthread as being impacted in all of their business, then I would be used to having many large public and private customers with different and conflicting contracting requirements and segregating support for those contracts, and for US defense contracts specifically, probably have a dedicated business unit for those that probably a subsidiary legal entity and which, in any case, is almost completely walled off in practice dedicate to defense contracts, provides all the shared services consumed by individual defense contracts independently of the parent corporation, and which adheres strictly to defense contracting rules and charges the compliance costs back to those defense contracts at a healthy profit, while having basically no impact on how the rest of the company does business.
You can imagine all sorts of hypothetical scenarios where Anthropic doesn't suffer too much. You can also imagine them losing a lot of big business. The point is that the DoD is sending a very clear signal: "if you don't do what we say, we will punish you until you do". If they didn't want to punish anthropic, they would simply go to a competitor like OAI. The fact that they're threatening several different potential revenge plots proves otherwise.
The govt has so many levers it could pull that it's technically not allowed to but that this administration has made very clear it loves doing. Things like spurious lawsuits prosecuted by a perpetually unconfirmed AG, or capriciously interfering in mergers or permitting processes. There's not a single norm too far for these guys. You're Dario Amodei. You would not be comforted by the idea that they're "not allowed" to punish you.
The govt has so many levers it could pull that it's technically not allowed to but that this administration has made very clear it loves doing. Things like spurious lawsuits prosecuted by a perpetually unconfirmed AG, or capriciously interfering in mergers or permitting processes. There's not a single norm too far for these guys. You're Dario Amodei. You would not be comforted by the idea that they're "not allowed" to punish you.
> You can imagine all sorts of hypothetical scenarios where Anthropic doesn't suffer too much
I wasn't recounting a hypothetical scenario.
I wasn't recounting a hypothetical scenario.
May I ask which large company with military contracts you work for?
> If they're designated a "supply chain risk", then any company that does any business with the military cannot be a customer.
That's not how it works, they'll just have to show how they mitigated the "risk". That doesn't mean not doing business with Anthropic that may mean not using Anthropic for any deliverables or any projects involving the specific contracts.
That's not how it works, they'll just have to show how they mitigated the "risk". That doesn't mean not doing business with Anthropic that may mean not using Anthropic for any deliverables or any projects involving the specific contracts.
> they'll just have to show how they mitigated the "risk"
If Hegseth is the one who decides whether the risk has been mitigated (he is), you think he's gonna be overcome by a sudden spirit of good faith and make impartial judgements? Or just do the thing that maximizes his leverage, gratifies his ego, and pleases his boss.
If Hegseth is the one who decides whether the risk has been mitigated (he is), you think he's gonna be overcome by a sudden spirit of good faith and make impartial judgements? Or just do the thing that maximizes his leverage, gratifies his ego, and pleases his boss.
> Or just do the thing that maximizes his leverage, gratifies his ego, and pleases his boss.
It doesn't really work that way. Both parties want something from each other. If he is not "overcome by a sudden good faith" judgement all of the sudden no more Windows updates and it's RHEL Linux for everyone. Or if IBM says no, then what? Write your own OS? The system doesn't really work as a charity, it's corrupt but parties want something from each other. If he knows they need something and there is no other way to get the spirit of "good faith" will descend like lightning upon him. In this case he knew there is Google and OpenAI in play, and just like magic OpenAI made a deal pretty quickly.
It doesn't really work that way. Both parties want something from each other. If he is not "overcome by a sudden good faith" judgement all of the sudden no more Windows updates and it's RHEL Linux for everyone. Or if IBM says no, then what? Write your own OS? The system doesn't really work as a charity, it's corrupt but parties want something from each other. If he knows they need something and there is no other way to get the spirit of "good faith" will descend like lightning upon him. In this case he knew there is Google and OpenAI in play, and just like magic OpenAI made a deal pretty quickly.
It's normal to simply go to a competitor when one supplier isn't giving you what you want. It's not normal to try to ruin their business relationships with everyone else in retribution.
If its not hypocritical lying, its not maga. Its a very simple rule of thumb.
> of "a baker should not be forced to bake a wedding cake for a customer that they ideologically/morally disagree with."
> I guess the rules are different if the customer is the government?
Hmm, I don’t see the inconsistency? They are saying one baker is not to their liking and they are refusing to buy it and are returning the already bought cakes back. Also looks like they just found another baker not too long ago with a better “deal”.
> I guess the rules are different if the customer is the government?
Hmm, I don’t see the inconsistency? They are saying one baker is not to their liking and they are refusing to buy it and are returning the already bought cakes back. Also looks like they just found another baker not too long ago with a better “deal”.
It was mostly in response to the secwar tweet:
"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,"
If this tweet is taken to the nth degree that'd effectively put Anthropic out of business since they have pretty significant Amazon[1] and Microsoft[2] cloud provider/funding relationships that would need to be nullified within 6 months.
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/federal/defense
[2] https://military.microsoft.com
"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,"
If this tweet is taken to the nth degree that'd effectively put Anthropic out of business since they have pretty significant Amazon[1] and Microsoft[2] cloud provider/funding relationships that would need to be nullified within 6 months.
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/federal/defense
[2] https://military.microsoft.com
Microsoft is probably not going to use Anthropic they went all in on OpenAI. Amazon gov stuff is already mostly separate. And in general it’s not clear what “supply chain” means for an LLM. Does it include code written by that LLM used on gov projects? What if it’s already written, rewrite it with OpenAI?
Pete Hegseth (and Trump) are such cartoon-villain buffoons.
Anthropic is a "Supply Chain Risk" much the same as Rene Good was a "Professional Agitator" or "Domestic Terrorist".
I pray that Trump gets crushed in the midterms
Anthropic is a "Supply Chain Risk" much the same as Rene Good was a "Professional Agitator" or "Domestic Terrorist".
I pray that Trump gets crushed in the midterms
I hope something really comical happens, that cannot be explained away by a bully, like Texas turning blue.
I just voted blue in Texas today, so we'll see. But, probably keep your expectations low(ish).
Early vote turnout in Texas outpacing past elections, fueled by Democratic primary voters - Texas Tribune https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/25/texas-early-voting-t...
Early vote turnout in Texas outpacing past elections, fueled by Democratic primary voters - Texas Tribune https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/25/texas-early-voting-t...
Would it be the Senate seat that would be jaw dropping? Or what exactly should I follow?
James Tallerico is seen by many as a bit of a bellwether for how Trumps coalition with the religious right will hold. He's a Presbyterian minister who makes quite a big deal out of opposing Christian nationalism. If he can win Texas it would signal a lot of trouble for MAGA and Republicans in general.
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It’s so embarrassing being an American and having these people as my representatives. Trump’s screaming about LIBERAL LEFT LUNATICS is just so insane. I feel like I’m losing my mind. How can any person think this is the guy they want representing them? The last year has really shaken my faith in humanity.
> LIBERAL LEFT LUNATICS
At least he has the alliteration down.
At least he has the alliteration down.
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No, just related. That was about Hegseth carrying through with his threat. This is about Anthropic making it clear they will fight this in court.
The line about the court fight is in the official Anthropic post. The discussion is over there.
The military uses a lot of open source software.
It would be interesting if the maintainers of several projects the Pentagon depends on were to start using Claude on those projects.
How would Hegseth explain that it is both such a big risk that he wants to ban from government work any company that uses Anthropic even if they are not using it for their government work, yet they keep using those open source projects whose maintainers are using it for the work the government is using?
Note: even projects that do not allow AI contributions could almost certainly find something helpful to use it for.
It would be interesting if the maintainers of several projects the Pentagon depends on were to start using Claude on those projects.
How would Hegseth explain that it is both such a big risk that he wants to ban from government work any company that uses Anthropic even if they are not using it for their government work, yet they keep using those open source projects whose maintainers are using it for the work the government is using?
Note: even projects that do not allow AI contributions could almost certainly find something helpful to use it for.
I think the lower courts will easily find this is far beyond what the statue allows (and a free speech violation) but this Supreme Court will be eager to get back on Trump's good side and will stay the lower courts injuction.
That means at least a year to get it resolved, in the mean time practically all enterprise users will need to migrate off.
That means at least a year to get it resolved, in the mean time practically all enterprise users will need to migrate off.
I don’t think it’s actually going to be a big deal. Anthropic’s response to Pete Kegsbreath basically said the only limitation they expect is DoD contractors can’t use it on DoD missions, not a general ban. Now that’s not nothing but there’s a whole business world hungry to generate insane amounts of code for no reason, they’re ready to collect the token tax
I would be shocked if any of the liberal enterprises move off them due to this. Maybe if they have explicit contracts around it but I have no idea why else they would.
Any company that does business with the military will be prohibited from being a customer. That's basically all the biggest companies, who will all choose to keep their multi-billion dollar military contracts and simply use codex instead of Claude. So Anthropic would be prevented from selling to all the biggest companies, many of whom have already adopted Claude.
That would be pretty tough.
That would be pretty tough.
they will move off it for explicitly their defense contracts which are often just one part of their business
What motivation would the Supreme Court have to get “back on Trumps good side?” If anything, after his recent name calling of them I’d think they’d be less inclined to appease him. The can’t be fired.
I guess the rules are different if the customer is the government? If it's the government, then if the government doesn't get its wedding cake then the government can go so far as to prevent the baker from selling cakes entirely to any other customers.