Artificial Intelligence company Anthropic has been blacklisted by the United States government after negotiations with the Department of Defense broke down. The dispute centered on Anthropic’s request for assurances that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or for mass domestic surveillance of Americans. The Department of Defense sought broader rights to deploy the company’s models across all lawful military use cases, prompting Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei to say the company could not agree under those conditions.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Anthropic made a mistake in its approach and suggested the company should attempt to correct course. He noted that the government had offered multiple opportunities to reach a compromise but claimed the company failed to take them.

In response, Anthropic said it was saddened by the designation and argued that labeling it a supply chain risk would be legally unsound and set a dangerous precedent. The company maintained that its exceptions were narrow and had not hindered any government mission, adding that it would challenge any formal designation in court while continuing to support customers and military operations where permitted.