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Altman says OpenAI agrees with Anthropic's red lines in Pentagon dispute
by Julia Shapero - 02/27/26 12:02 PM ET


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Friday that he agrees with Anthropic's red lines
in its increasingly contentious negotiations with the Pentagon over the
terms of use for the company's AI models.

As the feud between Anthropic and the Department of Defense (DOD) has
reached a boiling point, the AI firm has refused to budge on lifting restrictions on two issues u mass surveillance and lethal autonomous
weapons.

The Pentagon has pushed for the company to agree to language that allows
for "all lawful uses" of its technology. The DOD has given Anthropic until Friday at 5:01 p. m. EST to agree to its terms.

If the company does not, the department is threatening to cancel a $200 million contract, in addition to warning it could label the AI firm a
"supply chain risk" or invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA), a federal power typically reserved for wartime or emergencies.

"I don't personally think the Pentagon should be threatening DPA against
these companies, " Altman told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday morning.

"But I also think that companies that choose to work with the Pentagon, as long as it is going to comply with legal protections and the few red lines that the field, we have, I think we share with Anthropic and that other companies also independently agree with, I think it is important to do
that, " he continued.

"For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company, and I think they really do care about safety, and I've been happy that they've been supporting our warfighters, " the OpenAI CEO added.

OpenAI and Anthropic are major competitors in the commercial AI race, a rivalry highlighted by Anthropic's Super Bowl ad knocking OpenAI's plan to introduce advertising to its free ChatGPT tool. Altman and Amodei notably declined to clasp hands during a group photo shoot at India's AI summit
last week.

Ahead of the Friday deadline, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a lengthy statement that the company "cannot in good conscience accede" to the Pentagon's terms.

"Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions, " he wrote in the statement released late
Thursday, using the Trump administration's preferred name for the Defense Department. "We have never raised objections to particular military
operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc
manner. "

"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather
than defend, democratic values, " he added. "Some uses are also simply
outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do. "

The Pentagon has argued that it has "no interest" in using AI to conduct
mass surveillance or develop autonomous weapons.

Following Amodei's statement Thursday, Under Secretary of Defense Emil
Michael accused the Anthropic CEO of having a "God-complex. "

"He wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military
and is ok putting our nation's safety at risk, " he wrote in a post on the social platform X. "The @DeptofWar will ALWAYS adhere to the law but not
bend to whims of any one for-profit tech company. "
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