Anthropic and the Department of War

[Scott Hotes]

I found the following write-up about the breakdown of negotiations between Anthropic and the DoW, along with the administration’s heavy-handed overreach response to be enlightening:

https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/clawed

See for example:

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has gone even further, saying he would prevent all military contractors from having “any commercial relations” with Anthropic. He almost surely lacks this power, but a plain reading of this would suggest that Anthropic would not be able to use any cloud computing nor purchase chips of its own (since all relevant companies do business with the military), and that several of Anthropic’s largest investors (Nvidia, Google, and Amazon) would be forced to divest. Essentially, the United States Secretary of War announced his intention to commit corporate murder. The fact that his shot is unlikely to be lethal (only very bloody) does not change the message sent to every investor and corporation in America: do business on our terms, or we will end your business.

This was referred to from another post I recommend on the subject:

https://thezvi.substack.com/p/secretary-of-war-tweets-that-anthropic

This is yet another critical step in the breakdown of American values, torn apart by a narcissist tyrant, the sycophants he has surrounded himself with, and the willing Republican congress and (a good part of) the voting American public.

Scott

[jack saunders]

All accounts I read indicated that Hegspeth went into the talks with prejudiced hard on against Dario personally because he had been told Anthropic had been started by profoundly humanistic people breaking away from the profit maximizers … which, to an old Fox News hand, translated as woksters.  To the Hard Fork podcasters, the whole affair looks like a priceless marketing coup for Anthropic.  I tend to agree.This odd period must pass, and when modernity wins, as it must, Anthropic will be left with a corporate image they could never gin up for themselves without the help of a figure the size of the Secretary of War.

On Mar 2, 2026, at 10:05 AM, Scott Hotes <sah...@gmail.com> wrote:

I found the following write-up about the breakdown of negotiations between Anthropic and the DoW, along with the administration’s heavy-handed overreach response to be enlightening:

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[Scott Hotes]

Hi Jack,

Yes, that sounds about right WRT Hegseth and the administration generally.  It is “wok” to require when entering into a contractual agreement with the DoD that a technology you are licensing not be used for specific purposes.  OK, sure, if that’s how they want to define it.  Let’s look beyond the fact that that language had existed going back 4 years, and was agreed to both by the Biden and the Trump administration as late as last summer.

The author (Dean Ball) is getting at the fact that this kind of intimidation is akin to destroying core ideas around property rights, and the ability for parties to freely enter into contracts, etc., which I sounds right to me.

Not sure what to think about this being a priceless marking coup, maybe they are right.  One thing that MAY happen is that Anthropic gets locked out of markets for obtaining computing power necessary to compete in the frontier AI marketplace.  Such a thing could be existential for them, and is the kind of thing I believe Hegseth and the administration are threatening here.

Scott

[jack saunders]

The latest round, with Altman seeming to claim he got all the essential contract guarantees, sounds very fishy to me.  The govt clearly wanted the technology, but also wanted to needle people they associate with woke.  Obviously, the second goal is shamefully adolescent compared with the business aims.  There is no love lost between Altman and Dario, making Altman’s task of selling his version to employees tricky.  His sincerity schtik may be wearing itself thin.  Much will depend on how much the industry community believes that Hegspeth’s move was a genuine attempted murder of the company.  If most do, then they will probably stop badgering their managements to die on this hill.  NYTimes research marks this THE most deadly aggressive act of the U.S. government toward a named corporation in history.

On Mar 2, 2026, at 3:44 PM, Scott Hotes <sah...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Jack,

[Vince Koloski]

I agree that it might be a PR coup for Anthropic, but being the company that stuck to its principles and nailed them to the mast might not matter much if the boat sinks.

It was vastly unsurprising, and a bit unseemly,  to see Sam Altman sign his Pentagon contract before the door Anthropic was shoved through even fully closed. I suspect he would agree to any terms, no matter what he publicly states, if it got his company ahead.

Vince

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