A department renamed, not re-created
This entry is a federal government department, not a company. It is the United States military's civilian department, established by Congress in 1949 as the Department of Defense. An executive order in September 2025 authorized "Department of War" as its public-facing name, and the department switched its domain to war.gov and its public materials accordingly. Renaming a cabinet department by statute takes an act of Congress, which had not happened as of this writing, so "Department of Defense" remains the legal name even as "Department of War" is the one used everywhere the public sees it. [2][3]
Pete Hegseth has held the role of Secretary, styled Secretary of War under the new branding, throughout the events described here. [3]
Atlas interpretation: What makes a defense department relevant to an AI timeline is not research output; it is procurement. Federal contracts are large, sustained, and carry prestige that helps a vendor sell to everyone else. A department that controls which AI companies it will do business with, and can formally flag a vendor as risky to the rest of the federal supply chain, has leverage over model developers that no single commercial customer has. The dispute below is that leverage in use. [2]
The terms Anthropic would not accept
The department's contracting terms required accepting any lawful government use of the model. Anthropic's Dario Amodei refused in February 2026, declining to give up two carve-outs specifically: mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. He published the refusal along with the threats the department had attached to it, including a reference to invoking the Defense Production Act. [4]
The next day, Anthropic was directed to be designated a supply chain risk, a label the government had previously reserved for foreign adversaries rather than a US company. A day after that, OpenAI signed its own agreement with the department to run its models on the department's classified network, saying it had secured the same two safeguards, no domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, that Anthropic would not drop. [5]
Atlas interpretation: If OpenAI's account of its own deal is accurate, the department did not actually need Anthropic to give up those two protections; it needed Anthropic to accept the same broad contract language OpenAI was willing to sign, and the supply chain risk designation followed the public refusal rather than a substantive disagreement over safeguards. The department's own filed order is the more precise account of what it required, and this page summarizes what each company said publicly rather than adjudicating the dispute. [4][5]
The designation and the lawsuits
The department made the supply chain risk designation official on March 5, 2026, requiring every contractor doing department work to certify it does not use Anthropic's models. Anthropic filed suit four days later in both federal district court in California and the DC Circuit, arguing the designation was retaliation for protected speech and citing billions of dollars of 2026 revenue and hundreds of millions in private contracts at stake. [6]
The two courts moved on different tracks. The California court issued a preliminary injunction against part of the designation in March, while the DC Circuit declined in April to pause the designation while the case proceeded, finding Anthropic's harm real but primarily financial. That left Anthropic shut out of Defense contracts while still able to sell to every other federal agency, and to everyone outside government. [7]
In August, the California court ruled the designation unlawful. Judge Rita Lin found the department's action was retaliation for Anthropic's refusal to allow Claude to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments, and permanently blocked the designation. Coverage of the ruling reported the government was expected to appeal; no appeal had been confirmed as filed as of this writing. [8]
Sources
- The Department of War? Not Legally, What Trump's Executive Order Really Does
Military.com · Oct 20, 2025
- Restoring the United States Department of War
The White House · Sep 5, 2025
- Secretary of War
United States Department of War · Sep 9, 2026
- Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
Anthropic · Feb 26, 2026
- OpenAI's Sam Altman announces Pentagon deal with 'technical safeguards'
TechCrunch · Feb 28, 2026
- Anthropic sues in federal court to reverse Trump administration's 'supply chain risk' designation
PBS NewsHour · Mar 9, 2026
- Two Courts, Two Postures: What the DC Circuit's Stay Denial Means for the Anthropic Litigation
Jones Walker · Apr 27, 2026
- Judge says Pentagon's measures against Anthropic were 'illegal and baseless'
NPR · Aug 28, 2026