Court Blocks Pentagon’s ‘Supply-Chain Risk’ Label on Anthropic

A federal judge on Aug. 27 ruled that the Pentagon acted illegally when it deemed Anthropic a national security supply chain risk, a designation that barred the company from certain U.S. military contracts.

Anthropic’s lawsuit in California federal court alleges that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth overstepped his authority when applying the designation in March, citing national security concerns about the company. Under federal law, a supply-chain risk is the risk that an adversary could infiltrate or sabotage military systems.

The company had refused to change the user policy for its artificial intelligence tool, Claude, to allow the government to use it for what it described as “mass surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.” The Pentagon denied that it planned to use Claude for such purposes.

The refusal caused President Donald Trump and Hegseth to direct federal agencies to sever ties with Anthropic and state that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”

In the Aug. 27 order, Judge Rita Lin of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ​said the Pentagon’s decision was “illegal and baseless.”

“The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and ‌retaliate against government ⁠critics,” she wrote.

An Anthropic spokeswoman told The Epoch Times by email that the company welcomed the ruling. 

“We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology,” she said.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Pentagon for comment but did not receive a response.

The department said on March 5 that the issue comes down to ensuring that the military can use technology for “all lawful purposes.”

“The military will not allow a vendor to insert itself into the chain of command by restricting the lawful use of a critical capability and put our warfighters at risk,” the Pentagon said in a statement provided to multiple news outlets.

Trump said that Anthropic was attempting to “strong-arm” the federal government and officials elected by the American people by dictating its military policy.

“WE will decide the fate of our Country—NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” Trump wrote in a Feb. 27 post on Truth Social.

US Lifts Export Controls on Anthropic’s Mythos, Fable

Anthropic said on June 30 that it received notice that the U.S. Commerce Department had lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, its most advanced AI models, weeks after access to them was suspended because of security concerns.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a letter to Anthropic that he has determined that “appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 model.”

“Since the issuance of my June 12 letter, Anthropic has worked with the U.S. government to address risks associated with the covered models. These efforts have yielded significant progress,” he wrote.

Stacy Robinson, Matthew Vadum, Aldgra Fredly, and Reuters contributed to this report.