Anthropic filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to strike down the administration’s order labeling it a “supply chain risk.”
Last week, the Pentagon formally tagged the artificial intelligence company with the designation usually reserved for foreign entities after bitter negotiations between Anthropic and the department failed to make a breakthrough.
“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” Anthropic’s lawsuit reads. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech.”
Anthropic wanted assurances from the Pentagon that Claude, its AI chatbot, would not be used for mass domestic surveillance or to operate fully autonomous weapons. Department of War officials disputed the claims and argued that it would now allow any private company to dictate how it uses systems in war and demanded complete authorization for “any lawful use.”
“Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said. “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.”
President Donald Trump announced all federal agencies would “immediately cease” any use of Anthropic systems an hour before a Pentagon-imposed ultimatum was about to expire. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced last week that they would sue over the department’s decision, which he said they “do not believe” is “legally sound.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the administration’s decision violated protected First Amendment activity by petitioning the administration to honor its requested restrictions.
“Anthropic was founded based on the belief that AI technologies should be developed and used in a way that maximizes positive outcomes for humanity, and its primary animating principle is that the most capable artificial-intelligence systems should also be the safest and the most responsible,” the company’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.
It also notes that current and future contacts with private companies are “in doubt, jeopardizing “hundreds of millions of dollars in the near-term.”
ANTHROPIC CEO TO SUE PENTAGON OVER ‘SUPPLY CHAIN RISK’ DESIGNATION
Shortly after the president’s announcement on Feb. 27, Hegseth added that “no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
Just hours after the decision was made public, OpenAI announced it had struck a deal with the Pentagon.