Anthropic on Monday sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies after the Pentagon announced last week that the AI company would be labeled a threat to national security and its products banned from use for defense purposes.
In late February, President Donald Trump said he would also ban the use of Anthropic’s products across other federal agencies.
Filing two lawsuits, one in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California and the other in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Anthropic alleged that the federal government’s moves to cut off the company go beyond a normal contract dispute and instead represent an “unlawful campaign of retaliation.” The company said its “reputation and core First Amendment freedoms are under attack” and that it will seek to prevent the Trump administration from implementing the bans.
Anthropic said the supply-chain risk designation and messaging from the White House was already “jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars,” illegally ignored required procedures and overstepped presidential authority.
“Seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security,” an Anthropic spokesperson told NBC News, “but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners. We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government.”
The suit comes after months of increasingly tense negotiations between the company and the Pentagon over how the military should be allowed to use Anthropic’s advanced AI systems. Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei had wanted stronger guarantees from the Pentagon that its systems would not be used directly in deadly autonomous weapons or for mass domestic surveillance, while the Pentagon sought to use the systems for “all lawful use.”
In addition to the Defense Department, Anthropic is suing several other federal agencies, including the Treasury, State and Commerce Departments, and their top officials. Among others, Anthropic listed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as defendants.
Anthropic’s flagship AI system, Claude, has reportedly been used by the Pentagon on classified networks for support in intelligence assessments, targeting recommendations and battle simulations as part of its partnership with data analytics company Palantir. Claude has also been used across federal agencies to assist with data analysis and other administrative functions, much like consumer-facing chatbots.
Amodei has said that the supply-chain risk label, historically reserved for foreign adversaries and associated companies that cannot be trusted in critical industries, has never before been publicly applied to an American company.
When the two parties could not come to an agreement by a Pentagon-set deadline on Feb. 27, President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that all federal agencies must “IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology.”
Shortly afterward, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that he would direct the Pentagon to label Anthropic as a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security.” Hegseth made good on the threat on Wednesday, officially informing Anthropic that the company was banned from doing business with the Pentagon and its contractors for defense purposes.
