A Timeline of the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute

Anthropic and the Pentagon are in an ongoing dispute over what Reuters describes as "usage restrictions for military purposes" — limits the AI company says are necessary. The company is concerned about the use of its technologies for applications such as autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.

Now, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei a deadline: relent by 5:01 p.m. on Friday, February 27, and allow unrestricted use of the company's AI models “for all legal purposes.”

Axios reports that at a Tuesday meeting, "Hegseth told Amodei he won't let any company dictate the terms under which the Pentagon makes operational decisions, or object to individual use cases."

On Wednesday, Axios reported that the Pentagon has taken the first step toward potentially designating Anthropic a supply chain risk, requesting assessments from defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin about their “exposure” to Anthropic’s products.

The dispute raises a variety of political, legal, policy and ethical questions, and its outcome could set an important precedent for the relationship between AI firms and the US government. But it is not the first time Anthropic has run afoul of the White House; the company has taken a different view on AI safety regulation, including opposing a moratorium on state AI legislation.

In order to provide readers with a summary of what is known about the current dispute, the following timeline contains links to news reports and other useful materials. This timeline will be updated and additional resources added to it as events unfold.