Jessica Mendoza

At the same time, Anthropic was looking to grow its business and find new customers.

And one of the most high-value customers for any AI company is the U.S.

military.

Anthropic had already formed a partnership with Palantir, a data analytics company that has long worked with the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement.

That partnership allowed Palantir to offer Claude to Palantir customers, which laid the groundwork for Anthropic's technology to be used in defense work.

And in the summer of 2025, Anthropic landed a major $200 million contract with the U.S.

military.

The idea was that defense operations could start using Anthropic's chatbot Claude to help with their work.

The government had also granted a special level of access to Anthropic through the company's partnership with Palantir, meaning Clawd could be used in classified settings.

It's the only AI model that currently has that level of clearance, and getting it takes a long time.

So if Anthropic says it's really concerned with safety, it's really socially conscious, that sort of doesn't strike me as the type of place that would go for a military contract.

Why did the company go down that route?

At the time, Anthropic noted in a press release that the partnership would, quote, "...dramatically improve intelligence analysis and enable officials in their decision-making processes."

How quickly does the culture clash between Anthropic and the Trump administration start to bubble up after this contract is signed?

Dario Amadei has said that the company isn't woke and that Anthropic doesn't have political motivations.

Anthropic's usage guidelines prohibit Claude from being used to facilitate violence, develop weapons, or conduct surveillance.

An Anthropic spokesman said the company can't comment on, quote, whether Claude or any other AI model was used for any specific operation, classified or otherwise.

He added that any use of Claude is, quote, required to comply with our usage policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed.

We work closely with our partners to ensure compliance.

But Anthropic's stance was about to be tested.