The US military is still using Claude, but defense technology agents are fleeing

The aftermath of Anthropic’s dispute with the Department of Defense has left the company in an awkward place, as it is actively being used as part of the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran, and is being separated from many of its defense industry clients.

Part of the confusion is the overlapping and contradictory restrictions imposed by the US government. President Trump has instructed civilian agencies to stop using Anthropic products, but the company has been given six months to end its operations with the Department of Defense. The next day, the United States and Israel launched a surprise attack on Tehran, engaging in an ongoing conflict before Trump’s directives were fully implemented.

The result is that as the United States continues its air assault on Iran, human models are being used in many targeting decisions. While Defense Minister Pete Hegseth has pledged to designate the company as a supply chain risk, no formal steps have been taken to that end, so there are no legal barriers to using the system.

An article in The Washington Post on Wednesday revealed new details about how Anthropic’s systems will be used alongside Palantir’s Maven system. As Pentagon officials were planning the strikes, the systems “suggested hundreds of targets, issued precise coordinates of the locations, and prioritized those targets in order of importance,” the newspaper reported. The article described the system’s function as “real-time targeting and target prioritization.”

At the same time, many companies in the defense industry have already replaced human models with competitors. Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors began switching company models this week, according to a Reuters report. Many subcontractors are stuck in a similar predicament: A managing partner at J2 Ventures told CNBC that 10 of his portfolio companies “have rolled back their use of Claude in defense use cases and are in active processes to replace the service with another.”

The biggest open question is whether Hegseth will meet its supply chain risk rating, which will likely lead to a hotly contested legal case. But meanwhile, a leading AI lab is quickly being separated from military technology, even while being used in an active war zone.