Washington — The Pentagon gave Anthropic an ultimatum this week: Give the U.S. military unrestricted use of its AI technology or face a ban from all government contracts. They were unable to reach an agreement, and on Friday President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made good on their threats.
At the center of the dispute is a question of who controls how artificial intelligence models are used, the Pentagon or the company’s CEO.
The Pentagon’s AI contracts
The Pentagon awarded Anthropic a $200 million contract in July to develop AI capabilities that would advance U.S. national security.
Anthropic’s rivals, including OpenAI, Google and xAI were also awarded $200 million contracts by the Pentagon last year.
Anthropic is currently the only AI company to have its model deployed on the Pentagon’s classified networks, through a partnership with data analytics giant Palantir.
A senior Pentagon official told CBS News that Grok, which is owned by Elon Musk’s xAI, is on board
...Keep reading this article on CBSNews.
