Tensions between Anthropic, Pentagon heat up in AI safety debate

Yahoo Finance Video

Wed, February 25, 2026 at 8:00 AM GMT+9

Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) is facing a high-stakes conversation with the Pentagon after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned CEO Dario Amodei to discuss military uses of artificial intelligence (AI).

Yahoo Finance Technology Editor Dan Howley joins Yahoo Finance host Josh Lipton to discuss the clash over AI guardrails, with Anthropic emphasizing safety limits while the Pentagon seeks broader access for defense purposes.

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Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

Since we’re talking Anthropic, Axios reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to the Pentagon. It sounds Dan like we have some tensions here between these two. What do you make of it?

00:15 Dan

Yeah, I mean, look, this is uh a an interesting development just in that, you know, Anthropic’s been very outspoken, uh Dario Amodei’s been very outspoken himself uh about needing certain guard rails around AI. Uh you know, he’s previously said that uh providing high-powered AI chips to China is like uh giving them a nuclear weapon, uh more or less. And so, you know, there’s there’s this back and forth tug now where they want to work with with the US military with the Pentagon, uh but the Pentagon’s saying, hey, then we have to be able to do what we want with this AI and Anthropic basically saying, no, we don’t want you to be able to, you know, make kind of autonomous weapons or or things like that or do mass surveillance of Americans. Uh you know, there there’s certain red lines that we don’t want to abide by. And the Pentagon’s saying, well, if you don’t let us do that, then we’ll cut you off and say that you’re a supply chain risk, which could put other companies in jeopardy that that rely on Anthropic, or we can just kind of force you to if if we want to. Uh and so, you know, there’s there’s this high tension. It doesn’t sound as though this meeting, this according to uh Axios, went exactly well. There was doesn’t sound like it was very, you know, uh warm and fuzzy and you know, there was some some tension. Uh it remains to be seen what’s going to happen here because Anthropic kind of set itself up as this company that’s based around guard rails and about AI safety more than than anything. It it and enterprise as well.

01:46 Dan

The government is a huge customer that they they, you know, are ill can ill afford to upset or uh leave by the wayside. So, you know, it’ll they’ll they’ll we’ll likely come some negotiation where they they work things out. I mean that’s usually how things like this work. Uh but if worst comes to worst, it could be bad news for Anthropic.

02:11 Speaker A

You know, as you’re talking, Dan, I’m wondering, you know, one way to solve this, you know, you got Pete Hegseth, big fitness guy, very into feats of strength. I think I just saw him put up 315 on the bench. I think that was on video. You challenge Dario Amodei to a push-up contest.

02:35 Dan

You do that. What do you think? Both of them, blue jeans only. You got to go, you know, the RFK route, right? It’s the, the, uh, the ultimate workout gear, I guess. I would love to see who could win. I’ll put myself in there. I can get, you know,

02:38 Speaker A

What do you think? Oh, yeah. Well, that goes without saying. Sure. Sure.

02:51 Speaker A

Why not?

02:51 Dan

in, then I’ll need, you know, probably some string cheese to to revitalize myself and then probably take a nap for an hour and a half.

03:00 Speaker A

You know, the money would be on Hegseth, but I’ll just say, you know, you can be sneaky strong. Like you can be sneaky tall. You never know. You never know. Dark horse, Dark horse.

03:13 Dan

Dark horse, Dark horse.

03:14 Speaker A

Yeah. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

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