Court Backs Pentagon's Anthropic Blacklist

A 2-1 appeals ruling sides with Hegseth's argument that safety guardrails on AI could compromise military operations.

By The Defense Desk

A federal appeals court has upheld the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic from military contracts, handing a victory to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in their battle with the AI startup over safety guardrails on its technology. [1]

The 2-1 decision by the U.S. [1]

Anthropic says the March designation has cost it billions of dollars in lost business and damaged its reputation ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering. The company said it remains confident in its position and is considering its options, including review by the full appeals court. [1]

The picture is not entirely clean for the administration. A federal judge in San Francisco last month struck down a parallel designation under a different law, finding the administration had unlawfully retaliated against Anthropic for its views on AI safety. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco also blocked Trump's government-wide ban on Anthropic and Hegseth's order barring military contractors from doing any business with the startup. [1]

The split verdicts map the fault lines of a wider tension: between a defense establishment pushing AI to its operational limits and an AI sector that believes some limits are the point.

Anthropic has said AI is not yet reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons — a position that is now, formally, a liability in the federal procurement system. [1]