State Department switches to OpenAI as US agencies start phasing out Anthropic

WASHINGTON, USA – Three more US cabinet-level agencies, the departments of State, Treasury and Health and Human Services, moved to cease use of Anthropic’s AI products on Monday, March 2, joining the Pentagon in switching to rivals such as OpenAI under a new White House directive.

The federal government’s widening boycott of Anthropic and its language-trained chatbot platform Claude marked a rebuke by Washington to a leading company that had kept the United States at the forefront of national security-critical AI.

President Donald Trump ordered all US government agencies to phase out their use of Anthropic, declared a supply-chain risk by the Defense Department, a label that could reduce it to a pariah status typically reserved for enemy suppliers.

Following suit on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X his department was terminating all use of Anthropic products, including Claude.

Separately, HHS notified its employees in a message obtained by Reuters, and urged them to use other AI platforms instead, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. HHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The US State Department likewise said it was switching the model powering its in-house chatbot, StateChat, to OpenAI from Anthropic, according to a memo seen by Reuters.

“For now, StateChat will use GPT4.1 from OpenAI,” it said, adding that further information would come later.

“In line with the president’s direction to cancel Anthropic contracts, we are taking immediate steps to implement the directive and bring our programs into full compliance,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Reuters in an email.

Also on Monday, William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said in a post on X his bureau and mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were terminating all use of Anthropic products.

On Friday Trump ordered a six-month phase-out for the Defense Department and other agencies using products from Anthropic, whose financial backers include Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com.

The moves dealt a major blow to the San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup following a standoff in contract talks with the Pentagon over technology guardrails, and whether the government or industry decides how AI is deployed.

The Trump administration has been at odds with Anthropic over safeguards to prevent the US military and intelligence agencies from using its AI technology to target weapons autonomously and conduct US domestic surveillance, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

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Late on Friday, rival OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, Amazon and others, announced its own deal to deploy technology in the Defense Department’s classified network.

In a posting to X on Monday, Chief Executive Sam Altman said OpenAI would “amend” its DOD deal to make clear that its AI system would not be “intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.”

He added that the department understood the limitation to “prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance or monitoring of US persons or nationals, including through procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information.” – Rappler.com