Claude was the first A.I. certified to operate on classified systems. Altman, perhaps wisely, thought such work was likely to be more trouble than it was worth. But Amodei wanted Claude to be helpful at the most sensitive level. The national-security agencies do not use Claude in the form of a consumer chatbot; Secretary of War Pete Hegseth does not open the Claude app to ask what's up with the whole Taiwan thing.
The dispute began when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei voiced concern over a clause which allowed the military to use Anthropic's AI for any lawful use. Amodei asserted that the company would not allow for its technology to be used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weaponry, and wanted the contract to more clearly prohibit those uses.