OpenAI CEO Sam Altman disclosed late Friday that his company has finalized an agreement enabling the Department of Defense to integrate its AI models within the department's secure, classified network.
This development comes after a significant dispute between the Department of Defense – referred to as the Department of War during the Trump administration – and Anthropic, a competitor to OpenAI. The Pentagon had urged AI developers, including Anthropic, to permit the use of their models for “all lawful purposes,” while Anthropic aimed to establish clear boundaries regarding mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapon systems.
In an extensive statement issued on Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei affirmed that the company “never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.” However, he contended that “in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”
This week, an open letter garnered signatures from over 60 OpenAI employees and more than 300 Google employees, urging their respective companies to endorse Anthropic’s stance.
Following the failure of Anthropic and the Pentagon to reach a consensus, President Donald Trump publicly criticized “Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic” in a social media post. He further instructed federal agencies to cease using the company's products after a six-month transition period.
In a distinct social media update, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asserted that Anthropic was attempting to “seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military.” Hegseth additionally declared Anthropic a supply-chain risk, stating: “Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
On Friday, Anthropic responded by stating it had “not yet received direct communication from the Department of War or the White House on the status of our negotiations,” but maintained its intent to “challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”
Unexpectedly, Altman subsequently claimed in a post on X that OpenAI’s newly secured defense contract incorporates safeguards directly addressing the contentious issues that had been a point of conflict for Anthropic.
Altman elaborated, stating, “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.” He added, “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
Furthermore, Altman indicated that OpenAI “will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted,” and committed to deploying engineers to the Pentagon “to help with our models and to ensure their safety.”
Altman further urged, “We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept.” He concluded, “We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements.”
Sharon Goldman of Fortune reported that during an all-hands meeting, Altman informed OpenAI employees that the government would permit the company to develop its own “safety stack” to prevent misuse. He also conveyed that “if the model refuses to do a task, then the government would not force OpenAI to make it do that task.”
Altman's announcement coincided with breaking news that the U.S. and Israeli governments had commenced bombing Iran, with President Trump simultaneously advocating for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
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