Trump Orders Every Federal Agency to Phase Out Anthropic Technology After AI Company Refuses Pentagon Demands

President Trump issued a sweeping executive directive Friday ordering every federal agency to immediately begin phasing out Anthropic's artificial intelligence technology — the most dramatic escalation yet in the standoff between the government and Silicon Valley over AI safety limits. The order came just one hour before the Pentagon's 5:01 PM deadline for Anthropic to lift its restrictions on military use of Claude, the company's flagship AI model and the only one integrated into the military's classified systems. The directive effectively blacklists one of America's most advanced AI companies from the entire federal government, not just the Defense Department, after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company 'cannot in good conscience' remove all safety guardrails for military applications. The move sends a chilling signal to the broader AI industry: companies that impose ethical limits on government use of their technology risk being locked out of the federal marketplace entirely. Competitors like xAI have already signaled willingness to fill the void.