Amid the prospect of an IPO, the American artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, owner of the chatbot Claude, finds itself in the middle of a political and ideological conflict with the government of Donald Trump and the Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.
The concern is that potential friction with the White House could affect the company's business and strategic plan, which aims for an IPO on the American stock exchange as early as 2026. In early February, the startup raised US$30 billion in a round led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Coatue Management.
Before closing the deal with investors, however, the company, now valued at US$380 billion, approached 1789 Capital, a pro-Trump venture capital firm whose partner is the president's son, Donald Trump Jr.
It was precisely because of Anthropic's history of criticizing the current White House chief, and because it has former Joe Biden administration officials on its staff, and because it openly defends AI regulation, that the fund linked to the Republican government said no to the startup.
Claude is the only large-scale programming language model that can be used in classified environments, a status granted by the Pentagon that has been a major competitive advantage. Last year, the startup signed a military contract worth up to $200 million in a partnership with Peter Thiel's software company, Palantir, an ally of Trump and the Republican Party.
The problem is that this advantage has become a major headache for Anthropic. The Pentagon wants to be able to use the company's AI for all purposes. Anthropic, in turn, does not want its technology to be used for operations that include domestic surveillance and autonomous lethal activities.
Furthermore, competitors OpenAI, Google, and xAI agreed to have their AI models implemented in any legitimate use cases, an action considered a priority by the Pentagon.
Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense have been at odds for several weeks over the contractual terms of how the startup's technology can be used. Claude was used in the operation carried out in January to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The Pentagon, which considers "progressive" technology companies a problem and sees any restriction as an obstacle to military effectiveness, is rightly reviewing its partnership with Anthropic.
A senior Defense official recently stated that many Pentagon executives increasingly consider Anthropic a supply chain risk and plan to require contractors and suppliers to certify that they do not use Claude models.
“Our nation demands that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win any battle. Ultimately, it’s about our troops and the security of the American people,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
On the other hand, a spokesperson for Anthropic stated that the company “is committed to using cutting-edge AI in support of U.S. national security.” “That’s why we were the first cutting-edge AI company to deploy our models on classified networks and the first to provide customized models for national security clients.”
