Anthropic CEO vows to fight risk designation, insists 'vast majority' of customers won't be affected

Source: The Hill

03/05/26 9:07 PM ET


Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said Thursday that the company would fight the Pentagon’s supply chain risk designation in court, while suggesting the “vast majority” of its customers would be unaffected. The Pentagon confirmed the designation, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week, in a letter to the AI firm Wednesday, Amodei noted.

“As we wrote on Friday, we do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court,” the Anthropic CEO wrote in a statement Thursday night. The supply chain risk designation, which has typically been reserved for foreign adversaries, restricts defense contractors from using the company’s products.

However, despite Hegseth’s initial comments, Anthropic has argued the restrictions cannot bar anyone who does business with the military from doing business with the AI firm.

“The language used by the Department of War in the letter (even supposing it was legally sound) matches our statement on Friday that the vast majority of our customers are unaffected by a supply chain risk designation,” Amodei added. “With respect to our customers, it plainly applies only to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts,” he continued.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5770720-anthropic-ceo-fights-pentagon-designation/