A U.S. district judge has declared that the Trump administration illegally retaliated against the artificial‑intelligence start‑up Anthropic, with the Department of Defence’s labeling of the company as a supply‑chain risk deemed unlawful.
The lawsuit, filed by Anthropic, argued that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth exceeded his authority. The company had declined to allow its models to be used by the military for surveillance or autonomous weapons, sparking the Pentagon’s controversial designation.
Judge Rita Lin warned that citing national security does not grant a blank check to punish or retaliate against critics. “National security is not a reason to punish and retaliate,” she wrote, dismissing the Pentagon’s action as “illegal and baseless.”
Anthropic welcomed the ruling, stating it aims to work productively with government agencies to harness AI for national security that benefits all Americans. The company insisted that its current AI models are “not reliable enough to be safely used in weapons systems” and that using them for domestic surveillance would violate civil rights.
The Pentagon’s stance has been that private companies should not be able to constrain military actions, a view challenged by the court. The White House previously described Anthropic as a “radical left, woke company” attempting to control military activity, stressing that the constitution governs military use of technology, not a company’s terms of service.
Anthropic’s lawsuit maintained that the federal actions have adversely impacted the company’s business and infringed on its freedom of speech. Judge Lin highlighted that the government was “trying to cripple” the company and chill public debate about military AI use, calling it “classic First Amendment retaliation.”
