Anthropic fires back at US with lawsuit

AI startup Anthropic is suing the US government after the Trump administration blacklisted the company as a national security threat and labelled it a supply-chain risk, a designation usually reserved for foreign vendors. In a complaint filed 9 March in a California district court, Anthropic called the Department of War’s move “unprecedented and unlawful,” arguing it is already losing federal contracts and risks hundreds of millions of dollars in near-term private business as customers back away.

The dispute grew out of a clash between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and DoW secretary Pete Hegseth over how the military could use Anthropic’s large language models. Anthropic refused to give the Pentagon broad rights to deploy its systems, citing concerns about domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. The DoW then canceled a $200 million contract on 27 February before formally designating the company a supply-chain risk on 5 March. Anthropic, which has tried to brand itself as an ethical AI developer since its 2021 founding, says the move damages its reputation and violates its First Amendment rights, and it is asking the courts to overturn the designation.