AI Workers, and Even CEOs, Suddenly Turning Against the Trump Administration

“If any tech company caves to the Pentagon’s demands, War Secretary Pete Hegseth will have won the ability to surveil our communities… en masse.”

By Joe Wilkins

Published Feb 27, 2026 4:01 PM EST

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The Trump administration has a new rival in its ongoing feud with AI company Anthropic: Silicon Valley’s rank-and-file.

Newly reported by Bloomberg, a coalition of labor groups representing over 700,000 workers from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have made a formal ask of their corporations to join Anthropic in its refusal to comply with recent demands from the Pentagon.

“We are speaking out today because the Pentagon is demanding that Anthropic abandon two major safety guardrails for Claude, which is the only frontier AI model currently deployed in classified Department of War operations,” reads the letter. “We are writing to urge our own companies to also refuse to comply should they or the frontier labs they invest in enter into further contracts with the Pentagon.”

This week, the Pentagon issued an ultimatum to Anthropic to drop two key guardrails regarding the use of its AI system, Claude: one barring “mass domestic surveillance,” and another prohibiting the Pentagon from using its tech to build AI-powered weapons that can kill without a human operator.

The Pentagon had previously agreed to uphold both guardrails when it entered a contract worth up to $200 million to license Claude for classified use in July of 2025. But following a series of back-and-forth meetings, including discussion of using the company’s AI in a nuclear strike scenario, the Pentagon ordered Anthropic to allow unfettered access to Claude or face its wrath.

“How the Pentagon reacts remains to be seen, but we know they will rapidly seek to onboard other models without these guardrails in place, regardless of whether they try to force Anthropic to comply,” the worker’s letter urges.

“If any tech company caves to the Pentagon’s demands, War Secretary Pete Hegseth will have won the ability to surveil our communities — here and abroad — en masse, at an unprecedented level,” it continues. “He will have the power to build and deploy AI-powered drones that kill people without the approval of any human.”

In the face of mounting pressure from arguably the most powerful military entity in the world, In a statement published on Anthropic’s website, Amodei described the Pentagon’s increasingly desperate stance: “they have threatened to remove us from their systems if we maintain these safeguards; they have also threatened to designate us a ‘supply chain risk’… and to invoke the Defense Production Act to force the safeguards’ removal.”

“These latter two threats are inherently contradictory,” Amodei continued: “one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.”

Either way, he says Anthropic “cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” the deadline for which is 5:01pm on Friday, February 27th.

The legion of tech workers and Amodei gained a particularly strange bedfellow: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has become something of a nemesis to Amodei as the rivalry between the two companies has heated up. But swallowing his pride — or perhaps sensing a PR opportunity — Altman sent a memo to staff on Thursday essentially siding with Anthropic against Hegseth and the Pentagon.

“[R]egardless of how we got here, this is no longer just an issue between Anthropic and the [Pentagon]; this is an issue for the whole industry and it is important to clarify our stance,” he wrote. “We have long believed that AI should not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons, and that humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions. These are our main red lines.”

Zooming out, the rift draws attention to the growing contradiction between Anthropic’s dedication to ethics and its contract with the Department of Defense. While the $200 million contract is financially immaterial to the $380 billion Anthropic, allowing the Pentagon unlimited access to Claude could come at substantial reputational and legal risk, especially as the United Nations has begun efforts to ban lethal autonomous weapons on a global scale.

In a sense, the Pentagon seems to rely on Anthropic more than the other way around. According to Defense One, it would take the Trump administration three months or more to replace Claude. Still, there’s no accounting for ever-unpredictable Trump administration. Case in point, as the deadline loomed, Trump himself weighted in with a vitriol-laden post.

“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” he fumigated on Truth Social. “Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.”

“Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” he continued. “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!”

However, Trump conceded, the government will need a six-month period to phase out Anthropic products.

More on Anthropic: Anthropic CEO Says Company No Longer Sure Whether Claude Is Conscious

Joe Wilkins

Correspondent

I’m a tech and transit correspondent for Futurism, where my beat includes transportation, infrastructure, and the role of emerging technologies in governance, surveillance, and labor.