Pentagon summons Anthropic CEO Amodei over military AI guardrails standoff

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon for a Tuesday meeting, with contract negotiations deadlocked over the company's refusal to allow Claude for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has threatened to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk," a designation typically reserved for foreign adversaries that would void its $200M contract. Claude was reportedly used during the January 3 operation that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, bringing tensions into the open. A source told Axios that Hegseth is giving Amodei an ultimatum: cooperate or be banished from Defense Department work entirely.

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