Vitalik Backs Anthropic as Pentagon Threatens AI Takeover

 Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin backs Anthropic as the Pentagon threatens Claude access over autonomous weapons and mass surveillance limits. 

The Pentagon wants Claude. No guardrails. No exceptions. And Anthropic has until Friday to decide.

The Department of Defense handed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a hard deadline, according to The Guardian. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic executives on Tuesday. The message was clear. Comply or face consequences.

Axios first reported that the DoD threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act. It also floated labeling Anthropic a “supply chain risk” if the company refuses unfettered Claude access by the end of the week.

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Vitalik Enters the Fight Nobody Expected

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stepped into the dispute publicly. He posted his position on X, directly tagging Dario Amodei. Buterin said it would “significantly increase” his opinion of Anthropic if the company holds its ground and “honorably eats the consequences.”

His post called Anthropic’s current position “very conservative and limited.” The company has drawn two hard lines. No fully autonomous weapons. No mass surveillance of Americans. Buterin said those restrictions are not even anti-military by nature.

As Vitalik Buterin wrote on X, his view is that fully autonomous weapons and mass privacy violations are things “we all want less of.” He added that in an ideal world, anyone working on those programs would access the same open-weights models as everyone else, and nothing more. He acknowledged the world will never reach that ideal but said even getting 10% closer would be meaningful.

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The Contract at Stake Is Not Small

The DoD struck deals with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI back in July last year. Those contracts ran up to $200 million each. Until this week, Claude was the only AI model cleared for use in classified military systems. That changed on Monday. The Pentagon signed a new deal allowing Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot into classified systems.

Both xAI and OpenAI reportedly agreed to the government’s terms. A defense official said OpenAI allowed its model for “all lawful purposes.” OpenAI did not immediately comment.

The Pentagon’s chief technology officer, Emil Michael, has publicly pushed Anthropic to act. As Michael told Defense Scoop, those guardrails “ought to be tuned” for government use cases, as long as they stay lawful. He called it “crossing the Rubicon.”

A Broader Line Is Being Drawn Here

This dispute lands inside a longer political tension. Anthropic backed a PAC pushing for stronger AI safety rules. Amodei opposed Trump during the 2024 campaign. The company hired former Biden staffers. A pro-Trump VC firm pulled out of an Anthropic investment earlier this year over exactly those ties, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The DoD has poured billions into AI-enabled military tech. Unmanned drones. Automated targeting. The Ukraine conflict showed where this leads. Semiautonomous drones already operate without human control on real battlefields. These debates stopped being theoretical.

Firefly Social also surfaced, reporting citing Axios on the Defense Production Act threat. The ultimatum is real.

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Friday is the deadline. Anthropic has not publicly backed down. Buterin’s post on X still stands.

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