Posted on 09/25/2026 6:08:21 PM PDT by Libloather
A federal appeals court upheld on Friday 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.
The 2-1 decision by the US Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. came in a lawsuit by Anthropic challenging its March designation by the Pentagon as a national security supply chain risk, which the startup says has cost it billions of dollars in lost business and damaged its reputation ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering.
The court’s majority said it was reasonable for the Pentagon to designate Anthropic after it refused to allow its products to be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance. It rejected Anthropic’s claim that the Pentagon had retaliated against it for its views on AI safety and ethics.
Siding with Hegseth’s argument that Anthropic’s safety restrictions could compromise military operations, the majority said: “The Secretary raises the deeply sobering prospect of overly constrained AI models shutting down unexpectedly and thus causing important military operations to fail,” in an opinion by Judge Gregory Katsas.
San Francisco-based Anthropic said in a statement Friday that it respectfully disagrees with the decision but remains confident in its position and is considering its options, including review of the three-judge panel’s decision by the full appeals court.
The White House and the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
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. US 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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WTF is with every decision being made has to get approval from daddy liberal or it’s ‘not allowed’
Seriously WTF
Keep Anthropic the hell out of the Pentagon!
I know absolutely nothing about this, but neither does the court, so if I were a Judge I would rule the same way.
seriously if I applied for a job, and after doing a background check the employer said, umm, NO.
I am pretty sure I would not sue. Than again I dont have big enough balls to think I can rule the world.
Not only is the ban at the Pentagon, businesses doing business with the US military cannot have any material sourced using the AI engine.
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