'Unlawful and unprecedented': Anthropic sues Trump administration after clash over AI use
Artificial-intelligence firm Anthropic sued the Trump administration on Monday over the Pentagon's choice to designate it a "supply-chain risk," legal filings show.
Anthropic alleges the federal government retaliated against the company over its opposition to the use of its AI for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance of Americans.
The company claims the government violated its First Amendment rights, misused a national security law to blacklist it and sidestepped the normal process for canceling federal contracts.
"These actions are unprecedented and unlawful," the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California states.
"The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech," the company said. "Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation."
Anthropic claimed the government's actions "have inflicted immediate, far-ranging, and irreversible harm." The company said it has already suffered "unrecoverable revenue losses," adding it stands to lose existing federal contracts as well as opportunities to pursue new ones.
The complaint names numerous administration officials, including Secretary of War Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
A spokesperson for Anthropic said the legal action "does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners."
A Department of Defense spokesperson told ABC News: "As a matter of Department of War policy, we do not comment on litigation."
Last month, President Donald Trump ordered U.S. government agencies to stop using Anthropic's products, and Hegseth later designated the AI company a national security "supply-chain risk" amid a dispute with the Pentagon.
Leading up to a Feb. 27 deadline, the AI company's CEO, Dario Amodei, had made clear that despite threats from the Pentagon, the company would not drop its two key demands: no use of its artificial intelligence for fully autonomous weapons and no mass domestic surveillance.
ABC News' Selina Wang contributed to this report.
