Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the United States government after being formally labelled a “supply chain risk”, escalating a bitter dispute over the military use of advanced AI technology.
The legal action, filed in a federal court in California, challenges a directive issued by the administration of Donald Trump that effectively barred US government agencies from using Anthropic’s AI systems. The company argues the move was politically motivated retaliation after it refused to remove restrictions on how its technology could be deployed by the US military.
Anthropic’s lawsuit claims the decision was “unprecedented and unlawful” and violated constitutional protections around free speech and due process.
“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” the firm said in its complaint. “No federal statute authorises the actions taken here.”
The conflict stems from a disagreement between Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei and US defence officials, including Pete Hegseth, over how the company’s artificial intelligence tools could be used by the Pentagon.
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