Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deemed artificial intelligence firm Anthropic a supply chain risk on Friday, following days of increasingly heated public conflict with the AI company.

Negotiations between the Pentagon and the AI company Anthropic were severely complicated on Friday when President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the government would stop utilizing the company’s tech. The president ordered the Pentagon to begin a six-month phase-out, accusing Anthropic of being run by "Leftwing nut jobs."

The Pentagon clash with Anthropic and Friday's severe response from Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth highlights a growing war over who controls military AI.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he was banning federal agencies from using the services of AI company Anthropic

The unprecedented conflict over the military’s use of Anthropic’s AI model could transform the relationship between Washington and the tech sector.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Thursday that the DOD has "no interest" in using Anthropic's models for fully autonomous weapons or to conduct mass surveillance of Americans, which he noted is illegal. He emphasized the agency wants the company to agree to allow its models to be used for "all lawful purposes."

The California man behind a pair of AI-related ballot measures that appeared aimed at OpenAI has withdrawn the proposals – a move that came immediately after Sam Altman’s firm asked a local watchdog