Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic has sued the Trump administration following the Pentagon’s announcement last week that it will designate the company and its products as a “supply chain risk” and a threat to national security, additionally banning the use of its products for defense purposes.
The two suits, filed respectively in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California and one in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, push back against the Department of Defense’s (DoD) designation as well as President Donald Trump’s order to ban the use of Anthropic’s products across all federal agencies, deeming the government’s actions as “unprecedented and unlawful.”
“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the suit states. “No federal statue authorizes the actions taken here.”
The proceedings come after months of increasingly tense talks between Anthropic and the DoD over how the military can and should use the firm’s advanced AI systems. The company and its CEO, Dario Amodei, urged the Pentagon to adhere to safeguards that would prevent the AI firms’ technology from being used for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
The Pentagon refused to comply with the limitations, arguing that it should be able to use the systems for “all lawful purposes.”
After negotiations failed to reach an agreement by a Pentagon-set deadline on Feb. 27, President Trump retaliated, ordering all federal agencies to “IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on X that he would designate Anthropic as a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” informing the AI firm that it was barred from doing business with the DoD and its contractors for defense purposes.
In addition to suing the DoD, Anthropic is suing several other federal agencies, including the Treasury, State and Commerce Departments, and their top officials, listing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as defendants.
“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.”
