Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei may still be trying to make a deal with the Pentagon

Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) collapsed last week after the two parties failed to reach an agreement on how much the military would have unfettered access to Anthropic’s artificial intelligence.

When the Department of Defense struck a deal with OpenAI instead, it looked like the Army’s relationship with Anthropic would be coming to an end — but new reports from the Financial Times and Bloomberg say Amodei has resumed negotiations with Pentagon official Emil Michael.

These talks are said to be part of an effort to reach a compromise on a contract that specifies how the Pentagon can continue access to Anthropic’s AI models.

It would be surprising to see Anthropic seek a new deal, given the amount of vitriol that has been exchanged between the parties involved. But the compromise could still be attractive to both sides, as the Pentagon already relies on Anthropic technology, and a sudden shift to OpenAI systems would be disruptive.

The dispute began when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed concern about a provision allowing the military to use Anthropic’s AI for “any lawful use.” Amodei stressed that the company would not allow its technology to be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, and wanted the contract to more clearly prohibit such uses. When Anthropic refused to comply, the Department of Defense turned around and struck a deal with OpenAI instead.

Since then, figures on both sides have been vocal about their frustrations. Michael described Amodei as a “liar” with a “God complex”. Amodei took some jabs of his own at the Department of Defense and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a letter reportedly sent to Anthropic employees this week, calling the OpenAI deal “security theater” and the messaging surrounding it “outright lies.”

“The main reason [OpenAI] acceptable [the DOD’s deal] “We did not do this because they cared about calming down employees, and we actually cared about preventing abuse,” Amodei wrote in the memo.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pledged to declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” which essentially means blacklisting the company to prevent working with any other company that does business with the US military — though he has yet to take any legal action to that effect. This type of designation is typically reserved for foreign adversaries, and it is not clear whether it would withstand a court challenge.