US Treasury and federal agencies terminate Anthropic AI products after Trump's order

US Treasury, federal housing agency ending use of Anthropic products

March 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department and the federal housing agency are terminating all use of Anthropic products, including its Claude platform, in response to President Donald Trump's order to stop using the AI startup's technology. Trump on Friday directed the government to stop work with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare ⁠the startup a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown about technology guardrails. The Treasury Department is terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude, Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X on Monday. William Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, also said in a post, opens new tab on X that his department and U.S. mortgage ⁠agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are terminating all use of Anthropic products. Trump said that there would be a six-month phase-out for the Defense Department and other agencies that use Anthropic's products. These actions mark ⁠an extraordinary rebuke by the United States against one of the premier companies that have kept it in the lead on national-security-critical AI, ⁠threatening to give Anthropic a pariah status that Washington until now had reserved for enemy suppliers. Late on Friday, rival OpenAI ⁠announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department's classified network. Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Juby Babu; editing by David Ljunggren, Michelle Nichols and Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Treasury terminates Anthropic AI use after Trump's order

Why it matters: The move marks the next step in one of the most aggressive federal actions against a major American AI company. Driving the news: Trump on Friday directed the federal government to blacklist Anthropic from all government work amid a dispute over how the Pentagon can deploy its AI. What they're saying: "The American people deserve confidence that every tool in government serves the public interest, and under President Trump," Bessent posted. * The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what Claude was being used for. Context: Last year, Claude was made broadly available across all three branches of the federal government under a General Services Administration OneGov agreement. * While Treasury did not specifically list Claude as one of the tools it used last year in the department's publicly available use case inventory, employees have used Anthropic's Claude Code and other products. The bottom line: The decision will force employees to rework projects that rely on Anthropic's models, and raises fresh questions about whether other AI vendors will face similar scrutiny.

US Treasury says stopping use of Anthropic's tech

The US Treasury Department said Monday it is ending use of all Anthropic products, following President Donald Trump's government-wide ban on the AI start-up after it rejected the Pentagon's demands. The US Treasury "is terminating all use of Anthropic products, including the use of its Claude platform, within our department," said Secretary Scott Bessent in a social media statement. The decision comes at the direction of Trump, he added. "Under President Trump no private company will ever dictate the terms of our national security," Bessent said on X. Anthropic had previously turned down the Pentagon's demand that it agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models. It has since vowed to sue over "intimidation" and insists that its technology should not be used for the mass surveillance of US citizens or deployed in fully autonomous weapons systems. The situation has become a rare public dispute between a major tech firm and the US government. But the Pentagon argues that it operates within the law, adding that contracted suppliers cannot set the terms on how their products are employed. On Friday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he was "directing every federal agency" in the US government to "immediately cease" all use of Anthropic's tech. "Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow," Trump said. Hours later, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a deal with the Pentagon to use its models with similar red lines to Anthropic, using "technical safeguards" that the Department of Defense had agreed to.

State Department switches to OpenAI as US agencies start phasing out Anthropic

The federal government's widening boycott of Anthropic and its Chatbot platform Claude marked a harsh rebuke by Washington. Three more US cabinet-level agencies, the departments of State, Treasury, and Health and Human Services, moved to cease use of Anthropic's AI products on Monday, joining the Pentagon in switching to rivals such as OpenAI under a new White House directive. The federal government's widening boycott of Anthropic and its language-trained chatbot platform Claude marked a rebuke by Washington to a leading company that had kept the United States at the forefront of national security-critical AI. US President Donald Trump ordered all US government agencies to phase out their use of Anthropic, a label the Defense Department declared a supply-chain risk, which could reduce it to pariah status typically reserved for enemy suppliers. Following suit on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X that his department was terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude. Separately, HHS notified its employees in a message obtained by Reuters, and urged them to use other AI platforms instead, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. HHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The US State Department also said it was switching the model powering its in-house chatbot, StateChat, from Anthropic to OpenAI, according to a memo seen by Reuters. "For now, StateChat will use GPT4.1 from OpenAI," it said, adding that further information would come later. "In line with the president's direction to cancel Anthropic contracts, we are taking immediate steps to implement the directive and bring our programs into full compliance," State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Reuters in an email. Mortgage agencies terminate use of Anthropic products Also on Monday, William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a post on X that his bureau and mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were terminating all use of Anthropic products. On Friday, Trump ordered a six-month phase-out of the Defense Department and other agencies' use of products from Anthropic, whose financial backers include Alphabet's Google and Amazon. The moves dealt a major blow to the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup following a standoff in contract talks with the Pentagon over technology guardrails, and whether the government or industry decides how AI is deployed. The Trump administration has been at odds with Anthropic over safeguards to prevent the US military and intelligence agencies from using its AI technology to target weapons autonomously and conduct US domestic surveillance, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. Late on Friday, rival OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, Amazon, and others, announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department's classified network. In a posting to X on Monday, Chief Executive Sam Altman said OpenAI would "amend" its DOD deal to make clear that its AI system would not be "intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US persons and nationals." He added that the department understood the limitation to "prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance or monitoring of US persons or nationals, including through procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information."

US Treasury, federal housing agency ending use of Anthropic products

March 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department and the federal housing agency are terminating all use of Anthropic products, including its Claude platform, in response to President Donald Trump's order to stop using the AI startup's technology. Trump on Friday directed the government to stop work with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the startup a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown about technology guardrails. The Treasury Department is terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude, Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X on Monday. William Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, also said in a post on X that his department and U.S. mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are terminating all use of Anthropic products. Trump said that there would be a six-month phase-out for the Defense Department and other agencies that use Anthropic's products. These actions mark an extraordinary rebuke by the United States against one of the premier companies that have kept it in the lead on national-security-critical AI, threatening to give Anthropic a pariah status that Washington until now had reserved for enemy suppliers. Late on Friday, rival OpenAI announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department's classified network. (Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Juby Babu; editing by David Ljunggren, Michelle Nichols and Alan Barona)