Several technology workers have signed an open letter urging the Department of Defense (DOD) – rebranded as the War Department by the Trump administration – to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security.
The letter includes signatories from major technology and venture capital firms, including OpenAI, Slack, IBM, Cursor, Salesforce Ventures, and others.
Friday afternoon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the DOD to classify Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security, effective immediately. The move follows an ongoing dispute between the DOD and Anthropic centered on the company’s restrictions on the use of its technology for fully autonomous weapons systems and mass domestic surveillance.
“No contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” Hegseth wrote.
Hegseth said Anthropic will continue providing services to the DOD for no more than six months to allow for a transition. The directive is in line with President Donald Trump’s order that all federal agencies “IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” and begin transitioning any such technology out of their systems.
In response, Anthropic said designating it as a supply chain risk would be unprecedented for an American firm and that it would challenge any such designation in court. The company also said the designation would apply only to DOD contracts and would not affect commercial customers or other uses of its Claude model.
The DOD does have broad authority to restrict or exclude contractors deemed a national security risk, though such designations are more commonly associated with foreign-owned or adversarial firms.
In the open letter, signatories described themselves as “founders, engineers, investors, and executives in the American technology industry,” and said they “strongly believe the federal government should not retaliate against a private company for declining to accept changes to a contract.”
The signatories warned that the situation “sets a dangerous precedent,” arguing that punishing an American company for declining to accept changes to a contract sends a message to technology firms to “accept whatever terms the government demands, or face retaliation.”
“The United States is winning the AI competition because of its commitment to free enterprise and the rule of law,” the letter states. “Undermining that commitment to punish one company is short-sighted and antithetical to our national security interests.”
The letter urges the DOD to withdraw the designation and resolve the dispute through normal commercial channels. It also calls on Congress to step in and “examine whether the use of these extraordinary authorities against an American technology company is appropriate.”