A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute

This tracker was last updated on March 9.

Over the last several weeks, Anthropic and the Pentagon have been engaged in a dispute over what Reuters describes as "usage restrictions for military purposes" — limits the AI company says are necessary. The company is concerned about the use of its technologies for applications such as autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.

On February 24, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei a deadline: relent by 5:01 p.m. on Friday, February 27, and allow unrestricted use of the company's AI models “for all legal purposes.”

Anthropic released a statement on Thursday, February 26 indicating it would not budge. Then, on Friday, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to cease using Anthropic’s products, and Hegseth designated the firm a supply chain risk.

On Wednesday, March 4, the Financial Times reported that Anthropic has reopened talks with the Pentagon, and The Washington Post reported that Claude is being used in the ongoing war against Iran.

On Monday, March 9, Anthropic sued the federal government in a California court, arguing the administration’s actions had caused it irreparable harm and requesting an injunction of the supply chain risk designation.

The dispute raises a variety of political, legal, policy and ethical questions, and its outcome could set an important precedent for the relationship between AI firms and the US government.

In order to provide readers with a summary of what is known about the dispute, the following timeline contains links to news reports and other useful materials. This timeline will be updated and additional resources added to it as events unfold.