Sam Altman takes swipe at Anthropic amid uproar over OpenAI-Pentagon deal — ‘Bad for society’
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took a subtle jab at Anthropic on Thursday, saying he thought it would be “bad for society” if companies started abandoning the democratic process just because “some people don’t like the person or people who are currently in charge.”
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, Altman reacted to Anthropic and expressed his priorities.
“The state needs to be stronger than private companies,” he said.
According to a report by The Information, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expressed criticism of Altman’s relationship with the Trump administration in a memo sent to employees last Friday.
Amodei wrote in his memo that Anthropic “did not make a dictator-style eulogy for Trump,” but Altman did, according to the report. He cited this as the reason why Trump officials don’t like his company.
The Pentagon and Anthtropic have been locked in a months-long dispute over the company’s insistence on security measures that the Defense Department, which the Trump administration calls the War Department, said went too far.
The Pentagon imposed a formal supply chain risk designation on artificial intelligence lab Anthropic on Thursday, limiting the use of a technology that a source said was used in military operations in Iran.
This comes just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed last Friday that Anthropic would be labeled a supply chain risk and US President Donald Trump asked federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s services.
OpenAI’s agreement with the Pentagon
Hours after the Pentagon fined Anthropic last Friday, OpenAI announced a deal to effectively replace Anthropic with ChatGPT in classified military environments.
OpenAI said it wanted similar protections against domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons but was later forced to change its agreements; This led CEO Sam Altman to later say he shouldn’t have rushed a deal that “seemed opportunistic and sloppy.”
OpenAI’s CEO said Thursday that he plans to mitigate the situation.
“It’s complicated, we’re busy with other things,” Altman said. “But when things started to turn into a fight last week, it became increasingly clear to us that there was a possibility that things could go very badly.”
Anthropic’s supply chain risk label
The Pentagon said in a statement Thursday that it had “formally notified Anthropic leaders, effective immediately, that the company and its products are considered a supply chain risk.”
The decision appeared to eliminate the opportunity for further negotiations with Anthropic, about a week after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the company of endangering national security.
Anthropic confirmed that the move will take effect immediately and that government contractors are banned from using Anthropic’s technology on their work for the US military.
The state needs to be stronger than private companies.
But CEO Dario Amodei wrote in the statement that companies can also use Anthropic’s Claude on other projects unrelated to the Pentagon, adding that the restrictions only apply to the use of Anthropic AI on Pentagon contracts.
Dario Amodei, meanwhile, apologized for an internal memo published Wednesday by tech news site The Information. The release of the internal memo comes as Anthropic’s investors race to contain the damage from the company’s dispute with the Pentagon.
