Hegseth Gives Anthropic Until Friday to Drop Limits on Military Use of Its AI

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered an ultimatum to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei on February 24, 2026, demanding that the company permit unrestricted use of its AI models "for all legal purposes" by 5:01 p.m. on February 27 or face a supply chain risk designation. The dispute centered on Anthropic's usage policies, which the company says bar applications including fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Contract negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic had broken down over terms of use. Anthropic issued a public statement on February 26 declining to remove the restrictions.

The demand asks a private vendor to surrender contractual limits on how its product is used as a condition of continued government business, with a national security designation held out as the penalty for refusal. Where the line falls between the government's procurement discretion and coercion of a supplier's terms is the contested question.

Hegseth issued the designation after the deadline passed. Independent legal analysis published afterward argued that 10 U.S.C. 3252 restricts a designated firm only from contracts involving national security systems and does not authorize barring all commercial dealings between defense contractors and the company.