According to a report by the American consumer news and business channel CNBC on October 13, technology company Anthropic is requesting a federal court in Washington D.C. to review its appeal, which involves the Pentagon's listing of the company's AI model on a blacklist.
The lawyer for Anthropic wrote in a petition submitted on the 13th: “Secretary of War (Hagelseth) classified Anthropic—a US AI company whose models help protect the country—as a national security ‘supply chain risk’. This was because the company refused to allow its models to be used for large-scale surveillance or lethal autonomous combat against Americans. Anthropic also publicly explained these AI safety commitments. An divided panel of judges upheld this unusual classification.”
The US Department of Defense, led by Pete Heggseth, listed the company as a “supply chain risk” in March. This move prevented defense contractors from using the company’s technology when working with the agency. Previously, negotiations between the two parties regarding how the military would use Anthropic’s Claude AI model fell apart.
Anthropic has sued the Trump administration, attempting to overturn this decision. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the Pentagon’s ban. The court ruled 2-to-1, rejecting Anthropic’s argument that “the Department of Defense’s ban on Claude’s model was arbitrary, overstepping its authority, and unconstitutional.”
According to documents submitted by Anthropic’s lawyers on the 13th, the court ignored clear evidence that indicated the ruling was a form of “retaliation against Anthropic’s statements regarding AI safety.”
In a related case, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled in August that the Department of Defense violated Anthropic's First Amendment rights, considering it an illegal act of retaliation due to the 'supply chain risk'.
Before the conflict became public, Anthropic had been a early partner of many U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense. In July 2025, Anthropic signed a contract worth $200 million with the Pentagon. However, in September of the same year, when the company began negotiations regarding the deployment of Claude on the Department of Defense’s GenAI.mil platform, the partnership came to an end.
