By Michael Gregory
Publication Date: 2026-06-04 12:24:00
When researchers founded Anthropic in 2021, they said the race to build powerful AI was too reckless. They incorporated detailed security measures into their products and marketed their commitment to security as the corporate quality that differentiated them from the competition—particularly OpenAI, the rival company they had left. In March 2026, that reputation was tested when the Trump administration declared that Anthropic was a supply chain risk.
The company had refused to remove built-in safeguards that prohibited domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons from products it supplied to the Pentagon. President Donald Trump ordered the federal government to stop using Anthropic and its major language model Claude, calling the company a national security risk. Within hours, OpenAI made a deal to become a supplier to the Pentagon instead.
Despite Anthropic’s apparent stance, the company has quietly abandoned binding principles in its key security measures during its conflict with Trump…