Statement on the comments from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

• Hegseth directs DoD to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk.
  • Retaliation for two narrow exceptions Anthropic demanded in negotiations.
• Exceptions: no mass domestic surveillance, no fully autonomous weapons.
  • Anthropic: current frontier models too unreliable for autonomous deployment.
• Designation unprecedented — historically reserved for adversarial nations.
  • Never before publicly applied to an American company.
• Anthropic plans to challenge the designation in court.
• Statutory law limits impact to DoD contracts only.
  • Commercial, individual, and non-military defense contractor use unaffected.
• Anthropic: still supports “all lawful uses of AI for national security.”

X discourse

• @DMichaelTripi: “Pete Hegseth reportedly ‘paranoid’ about potentially losing his position as Secretary of War which is ‘fueling’ the firi” (9018 likes)
• @FurkanGozukara: “The media completely destroys Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, calling him a frat boy podcaster who is just trying to make” (3528 likes)
• @allenanalysis: “Media backlash against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is exploding. On-air, he’s being described as a political appointe” (2674 likes)
• @DemCastUSA: “A retired Major General told America that Pete Hegseth’s words are ‘absolutely the words of potential war criminals.’” (331 likes)
• @thedailybeast: “Pentagon insiders have torn into self-styled ‘Secretary of War’ Pete Hegseth for his deranged rants about Iran.” (242 likes)
• @theammind: “Hegseth’s willingness to attack progressive shibboleths is both exactly what he should be doing and why he is being atta” (11 likes)

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