Top Pentagon official reaffirms Anthropic blacklist despite Lutnick comments

Pentagon official Emil Michael posted on X on September 3 that Anthropic is still a designated supply chain risk. His post came a day after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the company had “done what we asked.”

Lutnick spoke to Mike Allen of Axios on the sidelines of the G20 Innovation Summit. “We trust Anthropic,” he said. When asked whether he trusts CEO Dario Amodei, he answered: “They’ve done what we asked. They’re back on the right side. So the answer is: Yes.” Michael wrote: “Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base.” Axios also reported that personality differences under Amodei fed this year’s clash, and that Anthropic has been giving co-founder Tom Brown a bigger role in its dealings with the White House.

The fight is over how the military may use Claude. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until 5:01 p.m. on February 27 to allow use of its models “for all legal purposes.” Anthropic, which treats autonomous weapons and mass surveillance as red lines, refused. Hegseth then designated the company a supply chain risk, and President Trump told federal agencies to stop using its products, Tech Policy Press reported.

A federal judge struck down the blacklisting in August. But Anthropic was still fighting a separate Pentagon designation under a different statute in the D.C. Circuit, where a three-judge panel had already refused it a stay on April 8.

Later, on September 25, the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 against Anthropic, which lets the Pentagon keep removing Claude and bar the company’s products from Defense Department work, AP reported. Judge Katsas wrote that the department “reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions.” Anthropic said it “respectfully disagrees” and is “considering all options, including further review.”

The ruling still does not bar Anthropic’s products from the federal government as a whole.