Trump denounces Anthropic as a 'Radical Left AI company' while the Pentagon scrambles to detach from deeply embedded technology

The US military reportedly used Claude, Anthropic's AI model, to inform its attack on Iran — despite Donald Trump having ordered all federal agencies to sever ties with the company just hours earlier. The extraordinary revelation exposes deep tensions between Washington's political leadership and the AI infrastructure now woven into the fabric of modern warfare.

According to reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Axios, US military command used Claude during the massive joint US-Israel bombardment of Iran that began on Saturday — for intelligence analysis, target selection, and battlefield simulations. The reports underline a stark reality: you cannot simply switch off AI tools that have become intricately embedded in live military operations.

The fallout traces back to January, when Anthropic objected to the Pentagon's use of Claude during its raid to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. The company pointed to its terms of service, which explicitly prohibit the use of its models for violent purposes, weapons development, or surveillance. Relations between Trump, the Pentagon, and Anthropic have deteriorated sharply ever since.

Trump took to Truth Social to condemn Anthropic as a "Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about." Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was equally incendiary on X, accusing Anthropic of "arrogance and betrayal" and declaring that "America's warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech." Hegseth demanded full, unrestricted access to all of Anthropic's models for every lawful purpose.

Yet even Hegseth conceded that an overnight divorce from Anthropic is not feasible. He acknowledged that the company would continue providing services "for a period of no more than six months" to allow for a transition. Into that opening stepped OpenAI: CEO Sam Altman swiftly announced a new agreement with the Pentagon, granting access to the company's tools — including ChatGPT — across its classified networks.

The episode raises urgent questions about AI governance in wartime — and about who, ultimately, gets to decide how these powerful tools are used when lives are on the line.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/01/claude-anthropic-iran-strikes-us-military