Trump directs government to ‘immediately cease’ using Anthropic technology

U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions during a press briefing held at the White House February 20, 2026, in Washington, DC. Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images

President Trump on Friday directed all federal agencies — including the Defense Department — to “immediately cease all use” of frontier AI firm Anthropic’s technology.

Trump’s announcement followed a tense back-and-forth between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which widely uses the San Francisco company’s popular AI platform, Claude, in even classified networks but took issue with the company’s refusal to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its models.

In a Thursday statement ahead of the Pentagon’s Friday deadline, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he refused to allow Claude to be used for mass surveillance of U.S. citizens or to guide fully autonomous weapons, an argument Trump framed as trying to “strong arm” the Defense Department and force it to “obey their ...