Anthropic’s (ANTHRO) CEO Dario Amodei is considering legal action against a Pentagon decision designating the AI company as a supply chain risk to U.S. national security.
“We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court,” said Amodei in a blog post on Thursday.
Anthropic said the company received a letter from the Department of War confirming that it has been designated as a supply chain risk to America’s national security.
Amodei said that the language used by the Department of War in the letter matches the company’s statement on Feb. 27 that the majority of its customers are unaffected by a supply chain risk designation.
“With respect to our customers, it plainly applies only to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts,” said Amodei.
The CEO noted that the Department’s letter has a narrow scope, and this is because the relevant statute (10 USC 3252) is narrow too. He added that it exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier.
Amodei said the company has been having productive conversations with the Department of War over the last several days, both about ways it could serve the Department that adhere to its two exceptions and ways for it to ensure a smooth transition if that is not possible.
However, Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who had been negotiating over the past several weeks with the company, said in a post on X on Thursday that there were no further discussions.
“I want to end all speculation: there is no active @DeptofWar negotiation with @AnthropicAI,” said Michael in the post.
On Thursday, Amodei also apologized for comments in an internal memo that surfaced on Wednesday. In the memo, reported by The Information, Amodei accused competitor OpenAI (OPENAI) of acting opportunistically and sacrificing safeguards in a Pentagon deal. Last week, OpenAI signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of War to deploy its models within a classified government network. The move came on the heels of President Donald Trump ordering federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s AI tools, canceling more than $200M in contracts.
In the memo, Amodei also said that he believes the reason the administration dislikes Anthropic is that the company had not donated to Trump or backed his AI policies, Bloomberg News reported.
“I also want to apologize directly for a post internal to the company that was leaked to the press yesterday. Anthropic did not leak this post nor direct anyone else to do so—it is not in our interest to escalate this situation,” said Amodei on Thursday.
He added that the particular post was written within a few hours of the President’s Truth Social post announcing Anthropic would be removed from all federal systems, the Secretary of War’s X post announcing the supply chain risk designation, and the announcement of a deal between the Pentagon and OpenAI.
“It was a difficult day for the company, and I apologize for the tone of the post. 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,” said Amodei.
Last week, Anthropic — which is backed by Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google — had rejected the Department of War’s demand for unrestricted access to its AI models.
U.S. agencies, including the departments of State, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, are going to stop the use of Anthropic’s AI products, joining the Pentagon in switching to rivals like OpenAI under the new White House order.
On Thursday, it was reported that Microsoft (MSFT) would keep Anthropic’s AI technology embedded in its products for clients, excluding the U.S. Department of War.