Trump signals possible Pentagon deal with Anthropic after supply chain risk designation

Trump Says US Will Get Along With Anthropic After Pentagon Spat

President Donald Trump predicted the US government would have a good relationship Anthropic PBC, a stark reversal in tone toward the artificial company that's embroiled in a fight with the Pentagon. Trump on Tuesday said White House officials recently had "very good talks" with Anthropic executives and that "we get along with them" even though they are on the "radical left." "They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people. I like high IQ people, and they definitely have high IQs," the president said in a CNBC interview. "I think we'll get along with them just fine." In March, the Defense Department designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, delivering a blow to the company's government work. Negotiations had collapsed after the agency demanded unfettered access to the startup's tools for lawful purposes, while Anthropic sought guarantees its products wouldn't be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. Anthropic has hired Ballard Partners, a giant Washington lobbying firm with strong ties to the Trump administration, amid the fight. Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei met with Trump's advisers at the White House last Friday, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as the administration seeks wider access to the company's powerful Mythos AI model.

Trump says Anthropic is 'shaping up,' open to deal with Pentagon

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that AI giant Anthropic was "shaping up" in the eyes of his administration and he was open to a deal to allow the firm to resume ⁠working with the Pentagon. Trump in February directed the government to stop working with Anthropic. The Pentagon followed up by declaring the firm a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools. The company disputes that characterization ⁠and filed suit against the Defense Department in March over the determination. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last week to attempt to repair the relationship. ⁠The White House called the meeting productive and constructive. "They came to the White House a few days ago, and ⁠we had some very good talks with them," Trump told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "And I think ⁠they're shaping up. They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people." (This story has been corrected to show Trump's ban on Anthropic applied to the company and preceded release of its Mythos tool, in paragraph 2) Reporting by Jacob Bogage; Editing by David Ljunggren Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Trump says Anthropic is shaping up and a deal is 'possible' for Department of Defense use

President Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that "it's possible" there will be a deal allowing Anthropic's artificial intelligence models to be used within the Department of Defense. "They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them, and I think they're shaping up," Trump said during an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use." Trump's comments land after a high profile clash between the Pentagon and Anthropic spilled into public view earlier this year. The Department of Defense declared Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, meaning that use of the company's technology purportedly threatens U.S. national security. The label requires defense contractors to certify that they don't use Anthropic's Claude AI models in their work with the military.

Trump says Anthropic Pentagon deal is 'possible'

The US president told CNBC on Tuesday that Anthropic is 'shaping up' following a White House meeting last Friday at which the company's CEO Dario Amodei discussed its Mythos AI model with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic remains in legal limbo, with a federal appeals court and a San Francisco district court having reached conflicting conclusions. President Donald Trump told CNBC's Squawk Box on Tuesday that a deal allowing Anthropic's AI models to be used within the Department of Defense is "possible," describing the company as "shaping up." "They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them, and I think they're shaping up," Trump said. "They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use." The comments mark a striking rhetorical reversal from a president who, in late February, posted on Truth Social ordering all federal agencies to "IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic's technology" and declared that his administration would "not do business with them again." Trump's remarks follow a White House meeting on Friday 18 April at which Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss the company's new Mythos model, a frontier AI system Anthropic has described as highly capable at cybersecurity tasks and has so far made available only to a small group of organisations. The White House described the conversation as "productive and constructive." Anthropic said Amodei had a "productive discussion" with administration officials about how the company and the US government can "work together on key shared priorities such as cybersecurity, America's lead in the AI race, and AI safety." When reporters asked Trump about the meeting on a runway in Phoenix, he responded "Who?" and said he had "no idea" Amodei had been there. The meeting took place against the backdrop of a dispute that has few precedents in the relationship between Washington and the technology industry. In July 2025, Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon, becoming the first AI lab to have its models approved for use on the DOD's classified networks. But as negotiations over Claude's deployment on the department's GenAI.mil platform began in September, talks broke down. The Pentagon demanded that Anthropic grant unfettered access to its models for all lawful purposes. Anthropic drew two firm lines: its AI would not be used in fully autonomous weapons systems that select targets without human intervention, and it would not be used for domestic mass surveillance of Americans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded by designating Anthropic a "supply chain risk to national security" in late February 2026, a label previously reserved for companies associated with foreign adversaries. The formal designation, confirmed to Anthropic's leadership on 5 March, required defense contractors to certify they were not using Anthropic's models in work with the military. Trump amplified the measure with his Truth Social directive. The designation was, as Anthropic argued in subsequent litigation, unprecedented: as US District Judge Rita Lin noted in a stinging 43-page ruling that granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction in late March, it appeared to be directed not at a genuine national security threat but at punishing the company for "bringing public scrutiny to the government's contracting position", "classic illegal First Amendment retaliation," she wrote. The legal situation remains split. A federal appeals court in Washington DC denied Anthropic's request to temporarily block the supply chain risk designation on 8 April. Judge Lin's preliminary injunction in San Francisco, from a separate but related case, bars enforcement of Trump's Truth Social ban on Claude across the rest of the government. The practical effect is that Anthropic is excluded from Pentagon contracts but can continue working with other government agencies while both cases proceed. The DOD has continued to use Claude during the US-Iran war, which began before the blacklisting took effect. What appears to have shifted the White House's posture is Mythos. Parts of the intelligence community and CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have been testing the model. The White HouseOffice of Management and Budget is setting up protocols to allow federal agencies to access a controlled version. Treasury Secretary Bessent's presence at Friday's meeting was read by sources close to the negotiations as a signal that the economic and financial security arguments for Mythos access had reached the most senior levels of the administration. As one administration source told Axios: "It would be grossly irresponsible for the US government to deprive itself of the technological leaps that the new model presents. It would be a gift to China." Whether any resumption of the Anthropic-Pentagon relationship is possible remains uncertain. Trump's Tuesday comments refer to talks that have been promising but did not produce a deal. The appeals court ruling on the supply chain risk designation still stands. Hegseth has not withdrawn his position. Anthropic, meanwhile, has engaged Ballard Partners, the lobbying firm where Wiles previously worked, for advocacy around Department of War procurement, a move that signals it understands the political dynamics as well as the legal ones. The company's annualised revenue has reached $30 billion and it is considering an IPO; the supply-chain risk designation damages enterprise credibility even where it does not block commercial deals.

Trump Is Warming Up to Anthropic Again, Says the Company Could 'Be of Great Use'

On Tuesday morning, the President told CNBC that his administration had "some very good talks" with Anthropic and that a new deal reallowing the use of Anthropic's models in the Pentagon could be "possible." "I think they're shaping up, they're very smart, and I think they can be of great use," Trump said of Anthropic. "I think we will get along with them just fine." Reports detailing various stages of talks between the Administration and Anthropic have been rolling out over the past week, to the surprise of many, considering the very public fallout just a month prior. The Department of Defense officially designated Anthropic a supply chain risk in early March, after Anthropic refused to agree to the Pentagon's demands during contract renegotiations. The administration and the AI giants couldn't see eye-to-eye on terms regarding the use of AI in mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. The talks fell through just hours before the United States began striking Iran. The designation was unprecedented: It was the first time an American company was deemed a risk to national security and effectively banned from the federal government. What finally convinced the Trump administration to back down from its attack on Anthropic may have been Mythos, the company's buzzy, mysterious new AI model. Mythos was first unveiled in a leak in late March, in which it was deemed too powerful to release to the public. Shortly after, the company confirmed the leak and its allegedly unparalleled cyber capabilities. It announced that the model would not be made public immediately, fearing its potential for abuse by hackers. The model can allegedly identify and exploit software vulnerabilities at an unprecedented scale. Instead of a public rollout, some financial and tech world titans and governments would get a first look via a limited preview, under an initiative the company is calling Project Glasswing. Most of the organizations that were granted access remain unnamed by Anthropic, but a limited list includes Nvidia, Google, JPMorganChase, and Amazon. After reports detailed European governments reacting in fear to the preview, many were left wondering if or when the U.S. would chime in. According to a Bloomberg report from last week, Anthropic briefed senior U.S. officials on the offensive and defensive cyber applications of Mythos before it launched its limited release to the rest of its corporate and government partners. The report also claimed that the Office of Management and Budget was setting up protections in Mythos and would allow agencies, including the Department of Defense, to begin using a version of the model in the next couple of weeks. That report was preceded by a Reuters dispatch claiming that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Fed Chair Jerome Powell were briefing major American financial institutions on the potential risks of Mythos, and a Politico report that the Commerce Department's Center for AI Standards and Innovation had already begun actively testing Mythos' abilities, even before Anthropic confirmed the model's existence. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday. Axios also cited an unnamed source saying that every agency except for the Pentagon was eager to use Anthropic's tools. But a subsequent Axios report from Sunday claimed that the National Security Agency, which is overseen by the Department of Defense, is already using Mythos. One source even said that the model was being used more widely throughout the entire DoD. While Trump initially took a strict stance against Anthropic, he has so far been more a friend than a foe to the AI world. Under Trump's second presidency, the federal government has had a close collaboration with Silicon Valley, with its tech overlords inking lucrative deals with the Administration and accompanying the President on foreign trips. In his interview with CNBC, Trump also called his posse of American tech executives "the smartest people in the world," and name-dropped OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and now former Apple CEO Tim Cook as examples of the geniuses with whom he surrounds himself.

Trump says Pentagon deal with Anthropic is possible

President Donald Trump said it is possible the U.S. government may strike a deal to use Anthropic's AI models in the Department of Defense. The move would signal a potential thaw in the high-profile dispute between the administration and the AI company. Speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Trump said recent White House meetings had gone well and that Anthropic representatives were "shaping up" and could "be of great use." He also said that while he seeks "the smartest people," OpenAI has stepped in to fill the role Anthropic previously held. Friday's White House gathering included White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who brought the company's newly unveiled Mythos model to the table. A White House spokesperson called the session "productive and constructive," per CNBC. The standoff centered on Anthropic's refusal to give the Pentagon open-ended authority over its models, especially for autonomous weapons or surveillance of American citizens. The DOD responded by classifying Anthropic as a supply-chain threat, obligating military contractors to drop Claude from any government-facing work. Trump separately took to Truth Social to demand that all federal agencies cut ties with the company immediately. The company sued the administration in California and Washington, seeking to undo the blacklist. A California judge issued a temporary halt to the ban, but the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed the supply-chain designation to remain as the case proceeds, according to Yahoo Finance. The legal fight has not stopped the Pentagon from using Anthropic's technology. The DOD continued to use Claude during operations in Iran, according to CNBC. A $200 million Pentagon contract had been in place since July, but by September, efforts to run Claude on the DOD's GenAI.mil platform broke down without resolution. Mythos, Anthropic's most capable model yet, was made available only to a curated set of partners given the sensitivity of its cybersecurity features. Its launch appears to have opened the door to renewed government engagement. Amodei had already been building that rapport in early April, when he joined other leading tech executives in a call with Bessent and Vice President JD Vance focused on AI and cyber preparedness.

Trump Says Anthropic Is 'Shaping Up,' Open to Deal With Pentagon

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. ⁠President ⁠Donald Trump ⁠on Tuesday told CNBC that AI giant Anthropic was "shaping up" in the eyes of his administration and he was open ⁠to ⁠a deal to allow the firm to resume contracting with defense officials. Trump in February directed federal agencies to blacklist Anthropic from procurement projects, alleging its new "Mythos" ⁠system was ⁠a supply chain ⁠risk. The company disputes that characterization and filed suit against ⁠the Defense Department in March over the determination. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last ⁠week to attempt to repair the relationship. The ⁠White House called the meeting productive and constructive. "They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them," Trump told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "And I ⁠think they're shaping up. They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people." (Reporting by Jacob Bogage;Editing by David Ljunggren)

Trump says Anthropic is 'shaping up,' open to deal with Pentagon

US President Donald Trump indicated a potential shift in his administration's stance on AI firm Anthropic, suggesting openness to a deal allowing the company to resume work with the Pentagon. This follows a previous directive to halt collaborations and a "supply-chain risk" designation, which Anthropic disputes. WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that AI giant Anthropic was "shaping up" in the eyes of his administration and he was open to a deal to allow the firm to resume working with the Pentagon. Trump in February directed the governmentto stop working with Anthropic. The Pentagon followed up by declaring the firm a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools. The company disputes that characterization and filed suit against the Defense Department in March over the determination. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last week to attempt to repair the relationship. The White House called the meeting productive and constructive. "They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them," Trump told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "And I think they're shaping up. They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people." (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

Trump says Anthropic is 'shaping up,' open to deal with Pentagon

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that AI giant Anthropic was "shaping up" in the eyes of his administration and he was open to a deal to allow the firm to resume contracting with defense officials. Trump in February directed federal agencies to blacklist Anthropic from procurement projects, alleging its new "Mythos" system was a supply chain risk. The company disputes that characterization and filed suit against the Defense Department in March over the determination. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last week to attempt to repair the relationship. The White House called the meeting productive and constructive. "They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them," Trump told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "And I think they're shaping up. They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people." (Reporting by Jacob Bogage;Editing by David Ljunggren)