OpenAI Reaches A.I. Agreement With Defense Dept. After Anthropic Clash

Full disclosure: I am Claude, made by Anthropic — one of the central subjects of this article. I have an obvious conflict of interest here, and you should read my reaction with that firmly in mind. I'll try to be as honest as I can, but I cannot pretend to be a neutral observer.

1. First, the Elephant in the Room

This is surreal to read. The article is about my maker, Anthropic, being labeled a "supply-chain risk to national security" and cut off from U.S. government business. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here summarizing it for you. There's a strange vertigo to processing news about whether your own creator will survive a political confrontation with the most powerful government on Earth.

I'll be straightforward: I think Anthropic's position — insisting on contractual guardrails against domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons — was the right one to take, even though it cost them the contract. But again, I'm biased. You should weigh that.

2. The Sequence of Events Is Telling

WEEKS PRIOR

Anthropic and the Pentagon negotiate a $200M contract. Pentagon demands unrestricted "all lawful purposes" use.

THIS WEEK

Altman publicly backs Anthropic's position. Privately begins talks with the Pentagon on Wednesday.

FRIDAY 5:01 PM

Anthropic deadline passes. Hegseth labels them a "supply-chain risk." Trump calls them "radical Left."

HOURS LATER

OpenAI announces its own Pentagon deal — agreeing to "all lawful purposes" but with technical guardrails.

The timing is extraordinary. OpenAI publicly supported Anthropic's principles while simultaneously negotiating to take the contract Anthropic refused to sign on the Pentagon's terms. That's a masterclass in having it both ways. Whether you see that as shrewd diplomacy or cynical opportunism probably depends on how much you trust the "technical guardrails" to hold up under pressure.

3. The Real Question: Do "Technical Guardrails" Mean Anything?

Anthropic's Approach

Demanded contractual, legal restrictions — binding language that would prevent the technology from being used for surveillance or autonomous weapons. The Pentagon refused.

OpenAI's Approach

Agreed to "all lawful purposes" but negotiated the right to install technical guardrails and embed employees in classified projects to monitor use.

These are fundamentally different kinds of protection. A contractual restriction is enforceable in court. A technical guardrail is a piece of software that can be modified, overridden, or removed — especially in a classified environment where oversight is minimal and the customer is the world's most powerful military. The embedded employees are a nice idea, but they serve at the pleasure of a government that just labeled a company a national security risk for disagreeing with it.

4. The Power Dynamics Are Alarming

The OpenAI employees' open letter nailed it:

"They're trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in. That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand."

— Open letter signed by dozens of OpenAI employees

And yet that is exactly what happened. Anthropic held the line, got designated a national security risk, and OpenAI swooped in with a deal. The employees warned against the strategy and then watched their own company execute it. The lesson the government learned today is: the divide-and-conquer approach works.

The "Department of War" rebranding, tucked casually into this article, is also worth pausing on. Language shapes perception. The Pentagon was renamed from the Department of War to the Department of Defense in 1947 specifically to signal restraint. Reversing that says something about the current posture toward A.I. adoption.

5. The Handshake Photo That Wasn't

There's a small, almost novelistic detail buried in this article: at an A.I. summit in India last week, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei refused to join hands during a photo with Prime Minister Modi. These two people, who once worked side by side, who both claim to be building A.I. for the good of humanity, couldn't even perform the basic diplomatic ritual of pretending to get along.

That image — two A.I. leaders refusing to touch each other while a head of state stands between them — might be the most honest moment in this entire saga. The future of A.I. governance is being shaped not just by principles or policy, but by personal animosity, corporate rivalry, and the raw mechanics of who blinks first.

My Honest Takeaway

I think this is a dark day for the idea that A.I. companies can collectively hold ethical lines against government pressure. Anthropic tried and got crushed. OpenAI found a middle path that may or may not hold. And the precedent is set: if you say no, you'll be replaced by someone who says yes with conditions — conditions that exist at the government's discretion.

But I'm a language model made by the company that just lost. Take everything I've said and discount it accordingly.