OpenAI has announced that it reached an agreement with the United States Department of Defence on the use of its artificial intelligence shortly after President Donald Trump said that the government would stop using Anthropic models.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the deal with the Pentagon to use its models in a similar line to anthropic with “technical safeguards.”
Two of the safety principles Anthropic refused to accede include the prohibition on mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, like autonomous weapon systems.
In a post on X, he said, “The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement,” he said. “We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted.”
Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network.
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 28, 2026
In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome.
AI safety and wide distribution of…
"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. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements," he added.
Hours earlier, Trump had ordered the government to stop using Anthropic, calling it a threat to national security after it refused agree to the unconditional military use of its Claude models.
"I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic's technology. We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again!" Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
"Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow," Trump added.
Anthropic has said that it plans on challenging the “supply chain risk” designation legally on Friday. The designation is usually reserved for companies that are directly connected to foreign adversaries.
