The Pentagon is maintaining its designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, a top defense official said on Thursday, directly contradicting Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's assertion a day earlier that the AI lab is "back on the right side"2.
Pentagon official Emil Michael posted on X: "Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you for your attention to this matter!".
The public split follows Lutnick's comments on the sidelines of the G20 Innovation Summit, where he told Axios: "We trust Anthropic. They've done what we asked. They're back on the right side". Asked whether he trusts Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Lutnick replied: "Yes".
ANALYSIS The contradiction between a cabinet secretary and a senior Pentagon official over the status of one of the world's leading AI labs exposes a visible fracture in the Trump administration's posture toward Anthropic.
The dispute has a layered legal backdrop. A federal judge in August struck down the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. Anthropic is separately fighting a Pentagon designation under a different statute in the D.C. Circuit.
Personality clashes between the Trump administration and Anthropic's leadership fueled the earlier confrontation, according to Axios. In response, Anthropic has been elevating co-founder Tom Brown's role in its relationship with the White House.
ANALYSIS The leadership reshuffle on the government-relations front, with Brown taking a more prominent position alongside Amodei, appears aimed at de-escalating tensions, yet Michael's reaffirmation of the blacklist indicates the effort has not resolved the Pentagon's objections.
The practical consequence of the supply-chain risk designation is that it restricts how the U.S. military and the broader defense industrial base can procure or integrate Anthropic's models. With one court ruling already invalidating part of the Pentagon's action and a second case pending in the D.C. Circuit, the legal and political status of Anthropic's access to defense contracts remains unresolved.