The company insists on implementing guardrails over how the US military can use Claude - specifically when it comes to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons - after it was used in the Maduro raid without their knowledge.  

The Pentagon is now calling Claude a threat to national security

Some are accusing the overwhelmingly left-leaning company of trying to undermine the Trump administration, while Elon Musk says Claude 'hates whites, Asians, heterosexuals, and men.'

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly "close" to cutting business ties with Anthropic and designating the firm a supply chain risk - a penalty typically reserved for foreign adversaries, a senior Pentagon official told Axios.

Anthropic's flagship model, Claude, is already embedded in the military's classified systems - however the company's CEO has been pushing for abstract guardrails over ethical concerns for what the government sees as urgent national security needs. 

If classified as a national security risk, the designation would force any company that wants to do business with the U.S. military to certify it does not use Anthropic's AI - effectively blacklisting the firm from large swaths of the defense ecosystem.

"It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle," the senior official told Axios. "And we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand."

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed the review, framing it as a matter of national security.

"Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight," Parnell said. "Ultimately, this is about our troops and the safety of the American people."

Claude was notably used during the January operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, highlighting how deeply embedded the software already is within U.S. defense operations. As Axios noted on Saturday: 

 The tensions came to a head recently over the military's use of Claude in the operation to capture Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, through Anthropic's partnership with AI software firm Palantir.