Judge rules Trump admin’s Anthropic ban illegal

President Donald Trump called the AI company "leftwing nut jobs" after it refused to let the government use its chatbot for autonomous warfare or to spy on Americans.(CN) — A California judge on Thursday struck down the Trump administration’s ban on usage of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic’s technology in the military.U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth illegally retaliated against Anthropic after they refused to remove restrictions on use of the Claude chatbot for mass surveillance of Americans and lethal autonomous warfare.The Joe Biden appointee disagreed with the government’s justification for declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security,” noting officials’ own words showed the ban was intended to make a public example of the company for criticizing the administration.“The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,” Lin wrote.The fight began after months of private negotiations between Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael over a new Pentagon contract.The Department of Defense wanted Anthropic to drop all usage restrictions on Claude. Anthropic agreed to loosen most limits but refused to budge usage for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance.Amodei ultimately issued a public statement in February saying Anthropic cannot in good conscience hand over that kind of access.The next afternoon, Trump posted on Truth Social ordering every federal agency to immediately stop using Anthropic’s technology, calling the company “Leftwing nut jobs.”Hegseth posted his own directive on X the same day, formally designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk” and barring any company doing business with the military from working with Anthropic at all.The government’s internal memo justifying the designation did not hold up under Lin’s review. Written by Michael, the memo warned that Anthropic’s AI could be disabled or altered in the middle of ongoing warfighting operations.But the government later admitted in litigation that Anthropic has no such backdoor access to its own models once deployed, and that Claude is no riskier in that respect than any other “black box” AI model.That left, in Lin’s view, only one factor distinguishing Anthropic from other vendors: trust.“The undisputed facts establish that Anthropic’s protected speech, on a matter of great public importance, was a substantial motivating factor for defendants’ speech-chilling conduct, and that defendants would not have taken the retaliatory action absent their desire to make an example of Anthropic for its public stance on the weighty issues at stake in the contracting dispute,” Lin wrote.Days before the ban, Hegseth floated invoking the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to keep serving the military, a step that would have treated the company as essential to national security rather than a threat. After the ban took effect, Michael kept negotiating contract language with Amodei anyway.“After reviewing with our attorneys and seeing your last draft (thanks for being fast), I think we are very close here,” Michael wrote to Amodei on March 4, the same day Anthropic received Hegseth’s formal designation letter.Lin also pointed to the government’s continued interest in Anthropic’s newer Mythos model, which multiple agencies, including the National Security Agency, began deploying around the same time officials were publicly branding Anthropic a security threat.“Defendants do not submit any evidence explaining why the government would seek to collaborate on these types of projects with a company believed to pose an intolerable national security risk,” Lin wrote.Lin ruled the actions violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by punishing it for protected speech, and violated its due process rights by imposing severe penalties without sufficient advance notice or an opportunity to respond.She separately found that Hegseth’s supply chain designation violated the specific federal statute he invoked, and that several other agencies lacked legal authority to impose sanctions implementing the presidential directive.Lin did reject Anthropic’s argument that the episode reflected an unconstitutional structural power grab by the executive branch, and sided with the government on claims against agencies that never actually took any action against the company, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Social Security Administration.The ruling permanently blocks enforcement of the ban and orders the government to rescind any guidance implementing it.It doesn’t require the Department of Defense to keep using Anthropic’s products, and doesn’t stop the agency from switching to a different AI vendor through ordinary, lawful means.Anthropic said the case caused real damage regardless of the outcome, telling the court the episode threatened billions of dollars in revenue and drew fearful inquiries from more than 100 customers worried about the consequences of associating with the company.Representatives for Anthropic and the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads