The Pentagon last week designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, meaning companies must stop using Claude in the defence department.
Anthropic sued the US Department of Defense in court on Monday after the agency labelled it a supply chain risk last week.
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The legal complaint comes after a conflict between Anthropic and the DOD over whether the military should have unrestricted access to Anthropic’s AI systems.
The Pentagon sanctioned the Claude maker last week, deeming it a supply chain risk, which means companies must stop using Claude in cases directly tied to the department.
President Donald Trump also said he would order federal agencies to stop using Claude, though he gave the Pentagon six months to phase out a product that’s deeply embedded in classified military systems, including those used in the Iran war.
“We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
The lawsuit has requested that a judge reverse the ‘supply chain risk label’ and stop federal agencies from enforcing it.
The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech," Anthropic said in the filing. “Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”
The Defense Department declined to comment Monday, citing a policy of not commenting on matters in litigation, AP reported.
Anthropic said it sought to restrict its technology from being used for two high-level usages: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials publicly insisted the company must accept “all lawful uses” of Claude and threatened punishment if Anthropic did not comply.
Anthropic makes the chatbot Claude and is the last of its peers to not supply its technology to a new US military internal network.
Anthropic won a $200 million (€167 million) contract from the US Department of Defence last July to “prototype frontier AI capabilities that advance US national security,” Anthropic said.
The company signed a partnership with Palantir Technologies in 2024 to integrate Claude into US intelligence software.
