Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to grant the US military unrestricted access to its Claude AI model, threatening to cancel the company's $200 million (£159 million) Pentagon contract and pursue a government blacklist designation if it refuses.
Hegseth delivered the ultimatum during a meeting at the Pentagon on 25 February, telling Amodei the department would invoke the Defence Production Act to compel the company's compliance if it did not agree to the military's terms by 5:01 p.m. on Friday, according to sources familiar with the discussion who spoke to Axios.
