Anthropic chief back in talks with Pentagon about AI deal

March 5, 2026 adminsr

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Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei is making a last-ditch attempt to strike a deal with the US defence department after the breakdown of negotiations last week left his company at risk of being frozen out of the military’s supply chain.

Amodei has been holding discussions with Emil Michael, under-secretary of defence for research and engineering, in a bid to iron out a contract governing the Pentagon’s access to Anthropic’s AI models, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter.

Agreeing a new contract would enable the US military to continue using Anthropic’s technology and greatly reduce the risk of the company being designated as a supply chain risk — a move threatened by defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday but not yet enacted.

The attempt to reach a compromise agreement follows the spectacular collapse of talks last week.

Michael attacked Amodei as a “liar” with a “God complex” on Thursday.

Deliberations broke down a day later after the pair failed to agree language that Anthropic felt was essential to prevent AI being used for mass domestic surveillance, which is one of the company’s red lines, alongside lethal autonomous weapons.

“Near the end of the negotiation the [department] offered to accept our current terms if we deleted a specific phrase about ‘analysis of bulk acquired data’ which was the single line in the contract that exactly matched this scenario we were most worried about. We found that very suspicious,” wrote Amodei in a memo to staff on Friday, which was first reported by The Information on Wednesday and seen by the FT.

In the note, which is likely to complicate negotiations, Amodei wrote that much of the messaging from the Pentagon and OpenAI, which struck its own agreement with Hegseth on Friday, was “just straight up lies about these issues or tries to confuse them”.

Amodei suggested Anthropic had been frozen out because “we haven’t given dictator-style praise to Trump” in contrast to OpenAI chief Sam Altman.

Anthropic was first awarded a $200mn agreement with the US defence department in July last year and was the first AI model to be used in classified settings and by national security agencies.

The fight between Anthropic and the government escalated after the Pentagon pushed for AI companies to allow their technology to be used for any “lawful” purpose.

It culminated in Hegseth declaring last week that he planned to designate the company a supply chain risk, obliging businesses in the military supply chain to cut ties with Anthropic.

Anthropic and the Pentagon declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Joe Miller in Washington