US agencies dump Anthropic as Altman revises Defense Department agreement
The US Treasury Department, State Department, and the federal housing agency announced they are terminating all use of Anthropic products, in a shift to OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker led by Sam Altman, who on Monday said changes were being made to its US Defense Department agreement.
The OpenAI Chief Executive said that the ChatGPT-maker is working with the US Department of Defense to make some changes to their agreement."We have been working with the DoW (Department of War) to make some additions in our agreement to make our principles very clear," Altman said in a post on X.
Altman said one of the additions to the deal states that the Pentagon has affirmed OpenAI services will not be used by the Department of War intelligence agencies (for example, the NSA). Any services to those agencies would require a follow-on modification to our contract.
"These are the principles I care most about for this decision: alignment, democratization, empowerment, and individual agency," Altman wrote in the second half of the post.
"The democratic process must stay in control, and we must democratize AI. OpenAI should not decide the fate of the world; no private company should. We need to work with governments, but also we need to make sure individuals get increasing power," he said.
Last week, the AI firm announced a deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department's classified network.
Departments of State, Treasury, Housing shift to OpenAI
Meanwhile, earlier Monday, the US State Department confirmed it will switch to rival OpenAI, after President Donald Trump ordered government agencies to dump Anthropic's technology, including its Claude platform.
Trump on Friday directed the government to stop working with Anthropic, and the Pentagon said it would declare the AI startup a supply-chain risk, delivering a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over technology guardrails.
The Treasury Department is terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude, Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X on Monday.
" The American people deserve confidence that every tool in government serves the public interest, and under President Trump, no private company will ever dictate the terms of our national security," Bessent's post said.
William Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, also said in a post on X that his department and US mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are terminating all use of Anthropic products.
The US State Department is switching the model powering its in-house chatbot, StateChat, from Anthropic to OpenAI, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
"For now, StateChat will use GPT4.1 from OpenAI," the memo said, adding that further information would be available down the line.
The State Department did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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Trump said that there would be a six-month phase-out for the Defense Department and other agencies that use Anthropic's products.
These actions mark an extraordinary rebuke by Washington against one of the premier companies that have kept the US in the lead on national-security-critical AI. Anthropic now could become a pariah, a status previously reserved for enemy suppliers.
Late on Friday, rival OpenAI announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department's classified network.
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