Pentagon’s Anthropic Ban Lifted After Clash Over Claude

A federal court may have decided Anthropic is not a national security risk after all.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin, a Biden appointee, voided the Pentagon’s “supply chain risk” designation of Anthropic, according to Lin’s Thursday ruling. The decision ends months of friction over what the U.S. military can and cannot do with Anthropic’s Claude, as the Pentagon blacklisted the AI company in February, Axios reported.

“Though the Department of War is undisputedly free to select the AI vendor of its choice, the evidence demonstrates that the broad measures imposed on Anthropic were illegal and baseless,” Lin said in the ruling.

The government’s interactions with Anthropic following the designation were not “consistent with a genuine fear that Anthropic is a saboteur who would poison its software to harm national security,” the judge added.

The Pentagon believed it could use Claude for “all lawful purposes,” while Anthropic wished to restrict tools for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, Axios reported.

“We welcome the court’s ruling that this supply chain risk designation was unlawful,” an Anthropic spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”

The Pentagon and the Department of Justice each did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Trump administration previously lifted export controls on the AI company’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models alongside an agreement to closely cooperate with the government.

President Donald Trump required all government agencies to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s products after the U.S. military was denied “broad access” to the company’s AI models in February.

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!” The president declared in a February Truth Social post.

“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will [sic] not do business with them again!” Trump added.

However, a separate case is pending in the D.C. Circuit, where Anthropic is challenging another Pentagon supply-chain label, according to the New York Times.