Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei may still be pursuing a potential Pentagon partnership

Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Department of Defence (DOD) fell apart last week after both sides were unable to reach an agreement over how much unrestricted access the military would have to Anthropic’s AI systems.

When the DOD ultimately reached an agreement with OpenAI, it appeared that Anthropic’s relationship with the military had ended, but new reporting from the Financial Times and Bloomberg indicates that Amodei later resumed talks with Pentagon official Emil Michael.

According to those reports, the discussions are part of an effort to find a middle ground on a contract that would define how the Pentagon could continue using Anthropic’s AI models.

A new deal from Anthropic would be a surprise, given the level of hostility already exchanged among the parties. Still, a compromise may remain attractive to both sides—the Pentagon already relies on Anthropic’s technology, and an abrupt transition to OpenAI’s systems could cause disruption.

The conflict began when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised concerns about a clause that would have allowed the military to use Anthropic’s AI for “any lawful use.” Amodei argued that the company would not permit its technology to be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons and wanted the agreement to state those restrictions more explicitly. When Anthropic declined to accept the existing terms, the DOD proceeded to sign a deal with OpenAI instead.

Since then, people on both sides have made their frustrations clear. Michael called Amodei a “liar” with a “God complex.” Amodei, for his part, aimed both the DOD and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a message reportedly sent to Anthropic employees this week, describing the OpenAI agreement as “safety theatre” and calling the surrounding messaging “straight up lies.”

“The main reason [OpenAI] accepted [the DOD’s deal], and we did not, is that they cared about placating employees, and we actually cared about preventing abuses,” Amodei wrote in the memoDefencese Secretary Pete Hegseth has also said he plans to designate Anthropic as a “supply-chain risk,” a step that would effectively block the company from doing business with any other firm that works with the U.S. military — although he has not yet taken formal legal action to make that happen. That designation is generally used for foreign adversaries, and it remains uncertain whether such a move would hold up in court.