Anthropic court filing reveals Pentagon said both sides were “very close” days after cutting ties

Anthropic submitted two sworn declarations to a California federal court pushing back on the Pentagon's claim that the company poses an “unacceptable risk to national security,” with the filings revealing that Pentagon Under Secretary Emil Michael emailed CEO Dario Amodei on March 4 saying the two sides were “very close” on the exact issues cited as justification for the supply-chain risk designation, which had been finalized the day prior. Anthropic's Head of Policy Sarah Heck states that the government's claim that Anthropic sought an approval role over military operations was never raised during negotiations and appeared for the first time in court filings, while Head of Public Sector Thiyagu Ramasamy disputes the technical feasibility of the government's concern that Anthropic could disable or alter its technology mid-operation, explaining that once Claude is deployed in an air-gapped government system, Anthropic has no access, no kill switch, and cannot see user inputs. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, March 24, before Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco, where Anthropic will argue that the designation, the first ever applied to an American company, amounts to government retaliation for its publicly stated views on AI safety in violation of the First Amendment.