OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman announced late Friday that the company has reached an agreement permitting the US Department of Defense to use its AI models within the department’s classified network, as tensions escalate between the Pentagon and rival Anthropic.
The development follows a public standoff between the Department of Defense, which the Trump administration has referred to as the Department of War, and Anthropic over the scope of military use of advanced AI systems.
Pentagon Push And Anthropic Objections
The Pentagon urged AI companies, including Anthropic, to allow their models to be used for “all lawful purposes.” Anthropic sought to set limits, drawing a line around mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
In a statement released Thursday, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said the company “never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” but added that “in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”
More than 60 OpenAI employees and 300 Google employees signed an open letter this week urging their employers to support Anthropic’s position.
Federal Action Against Anthropic
After Anthropic and the Pentagon failed to reach an agreement, Donald Trump criticized the company in a social media post and directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s products following a six-month phase-out period.
In a separate statement, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Anthropic was attempting to “seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military.” He added that Anthropic would be designated a supply-chain risk, stating that effective immediately no contractor, supplier or partner doing business with the US military may conduct commercial activity with the company.
On Friday, Anthropic said it had “not yet received direct communication from the Department of War or the White House on the status of our negotiations,” and said it would challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.
OpenAI Agreement And Safeguards
Altman said OpenAI’s new defense contract includes protections addressing the same issues raised in Anthropic’s dispute.
“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X. “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
Altman said OpenAI will build technical safeguards to ensure its models operate as intended, and that the Department of Defense requested those protections. The company will also deploy engineers to work with the Pentagon to support model deployment and ensure safety.
“We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept,” Altman added. He said OpenAI had expressed a desire to see the situation move away from legal and governmental action toward negotiated agreements.
According to reporting by Fortune’s Sharon Goldman, Altman told OpenAI staff during an all-hands meeting that the government would allow the company to build its own “safety stack” to prevent misuse. He also said that if a model refuses to complete a task, the government would not compel OpenAI to override that refusal.
Regional Developments
Altman’s announcement came shortly before news reports that the United States and Israel had begun bombing Iran, with Trump calling for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Featured image credits: Benedikt von Loebell via Flickr
For more stories like it, click the +Follow button at the top of this page to follow us.