Former Trump AI Adviser Torches President’s War on Anthropic: ‘Attempted Corporate Murder’  

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

A former senior artificial intelligence adviser to President Donald Trump lambasted the president’s treatment of Anthropic for failing to cave to the president’s demands.

On Friday, Trump ordered the federal government not to use the AI company’s products after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to make the company’s technology available for use in domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The Department of Defense gave Anthropic a Friday deadline to drop its conditions or lose its government contract, which is worth as much as $200 million. Anthropic reported $14 billion in revenue last year and is planning an initial public offering later this year. The company is valued at $380 billion.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump wrote, “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!”

After Trump’s announcement, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk that threatens national security and would blacklist it from working with other military contractors.

Dean W. Ball, the aforementioned ex-Trump adviser on AI, said the development is beyond troubling.

“Nvidia, Amazon, Google will have to divest from Anthropic if Hegseth gets his way,” Ball wrote. “This is simply attempted corporate murder. I could not possibly recommend investing in American AI to any investor; I could not possibly recommend starting an AI company in the United States.”

On Tuesday, it was reported that Hegseth had reportedly floated using the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to drop its limitations.

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