OpenAI strikes a deal with the Pentagon hours after the Trump admin banned Anthropic
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense that would allow the company's AI tools to be used in classified military systems – with conditions that appear to mirror almost exactly the restrictions Anthropic had demanded, and lost its government contract over.
The announcement came the same day President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's products and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled the company a "supply chain risk" – a consequence of Anthropic refusing to drop its restrictions on Claude being used in autonomous weapons systems or for mass surveillance of American citizens.
Altman wrote on X:
"Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.
The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement. We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the (Department of War) also wanted."
Altman added that OpenAI would send engineers directly to the Pentagon to oversee model safety, and called for the same deal terms to be extended to all AI companies:
"We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements."
Hegseth reposted Altman's statement on X, and Under Secretary for Technology Emil Michael wrote separately that "when it comes to matters of life and death for our warfighters, having a reliable and steady partner that engages in good faith makes all the difference as we enter into the AI Age."
What exactly distinguishes OpenAI's agreement from what Anthropic had sought in its own negotiations remains unclear. Neither the Pentagon nor OpenAI offered further comment.
Anthropic, for its part, said it intends to legally challenge the "supply chain risk" designation – a label historically reserved for companies with direct ties to foreign adversaries of the United States.
