Steve Bannon says Anthropic 'had it right' in rejecting deal with the Pentagon

Steve Bannon spoke at the 2026 Semafor World Economy Summit on Thursday. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Semafor World Economy 2026-04-17T17:29:54.950Z Share Copy link Email Facebook WhatsApp X LinkedIn Bluesky Threads lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Impact Link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Steve Bannon said Anthropic "had it right" in rejecting the Pentagon's deal. Bannon said we need to better understand how weapon manufacturers will use AI. The Pentagon effectively blacklisted Anthropic following the failed deal. AI-generated summary Summaries are generated by an AI model trained on Business Insider's articles. AI may make mistakes or provide inaccurate/incomplete information. We're unable to load that answer right now. Please try again. What is Anthropic's main focus now? How might AI be used in weaponry? What are the concerns with Claude Mythos? Why did Anthropic reject the Pentagon deal? What led to Anthropic's App Store success? At least one person in Trump world believes Anthropic was correct to reject a deal with the Pentagon. Loading audio narration... "I think Anthropic had it right," former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said during the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.Bannon said allowing the Pentagon to operate Anthropic's frontier model — Claude — with little guardrails is "too dangerous." Bannon, who's criticized the development of superintelligent AI, said there needs to be greater transparency about how weapons manufacturers will use AI."The central thing is what is happening in the weapons lab with AI," Bannon said. "We have no earthly idea." The clash between Anthropic and the Pentagon began in February amid negotiations about the military using Claude.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pressed the company to accept its terms of use or risk losing its contract with the military.In a blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company "cannot in good conscience accede" to the Pentagon's requests. Specifically, Amodei said the company had concerns over two issues: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic's refusal drew a swift response from the Pentagon, which effectively blacklisted the company by labeling it a supply chain risk and barring federal agencies from using the tech. Anthropic filed a lawsuit in March against Hegseth, the Pentagon, the Executive Office of the President, and other federal agencies over the blacklist efforts.The Pentagon, meanwhile, quickly made a deal with Sam Altman's OpenAI. Despite the legal and business fallout, Anthropic won big in the court of public opinion. Claude temporarily overtook ChatGPT in the App Store, and the company garnered praise for standing its ground.More recently, Anthropic made headlines with the announcement of its new model, Mythos. The company said it paused the model's release due to cybersecurity concerns. "Claude Mythos Preview's large increase in capabilities has led us to decide not to make it generally available," the company wrote in the preview's system card. "Instead, we are using it as part of a defensive cybersecurity program with a limited set of partners."