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Article Origin: https://www.axios.com/2026/02/15/claude-pentagon-anthropic-contract-maduro
The Pentagon is considering severing its relationship with Anthropic over the AI firm’s insistence on maintaining some limitations on how the military uses its models, a senior administration official told Axios.
The tensions came to a head recently over the military’s use of Claude in the operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, through Anthropic’s partnership with AI software firm Palantir.
A senior Pentagon official stated: “It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this.”
Anthropic signed a contract valued up to $200 million with the Pentagon last summer. Claude was also the first model the Pentagon brought into its classified networks.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and xAI’s Grok are all used in unclassified settings, and all three have agreed to lift the guardrails that apply to ordinary users for their work with the Pentagon.
What guardrails you might ask?
Anthropic wants to ensure its tools aren’t used to spy on Americans en masse, or to develop weapons that fire with no human involvement.
Sounds like CEO Dario Amodei is the only moral guy in the group thats gives a crap about this compared to OpenAI, Google, and xAI.
And apparently the Pentagon needs Anthropic’s Claude as noted by the Pentagon official, competing models “are just behind” when it comes to specialized government applications. Which would complicate the switch to one of these other AI companies.
Clearly, from the Pentagon’s point of view, Dario Amodei’ Claude is far superior than Google Gemini, ChatGPT, or Grok and all three of these companies would have no problem utilizing anything goes or “all lawful use” which includes surveilling Americans or auto-pulling the trigger on targets.
Keep that in mind. These companies are chomping at the bit to get these government contracts and are willing to do whatever is requested, without ethics or morals entering the picture.
I imagine Dario Amodei will acquiesce rather than lose his contract status, but at least he’s attempting to negotiate out of the danger and power AI grants to governments.
Furthermore, it’s plainly obvious the military requires the use of Claude in their operations which tells me that’s the best they got from a commercial aspect. Oh I’m sure they could switch to an inferior model, but that’s the whole point – super computers maybe able to answer the tough questions and plot scenarios, but it takes an AI company, like Anthropic, to be on the cutting edge.
What does that tell you about the technology race? Well I think if we compare all the other models out there, you’ll have a pretty clear picture of the capabilities.
