Anthropic scored a major endorsement in the summer of 2025 when it won a contract worth up to $200 million from the United States Defense Department. Now, the AI startup’s relationship with the Pentagon is on the rocks…According to Anthropic’s terms and condition Claude can’t be used for any actions related to domestic surveillance. That limits how many law-enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) could deploy it. Anthropic’s focus on safe applications of AI—and its objection to having its technology used in autonomous lethal operations (e.g., drones)—have continued to cause problems…

Other AI companies including OpenAI and Google are also working with the military.

Excerpt from Keach Hagey, Anthropic-Pentagon Clash Over Limits on AI Puts $200 Million Contract at Risk, WSJ, Jan. 29, 2026