FCC Chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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After the U.S. government blacklisted Anthropic, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr told CNBC on Tuesday that Anthropic “made a mistake” in its dealings with the Department of Defense.
Anthropic was in tense negotiations with the Department of Defense over the terms of its contract. The company sought assurances that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or for mass surveillance of American citizens domestically. The Department of Defense wanted Anthropic to agree to allow the military to use the model across all legitimate use cases.
Negotiations stalled last week, with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei saying the company “could not in good conscience” allow its models to be used under these conditions.
“I think[Anthropic]probably made a mistake,” FCC’s Carr told CNBC. “Clearly, there are rules of the road that apply to any technology contracted by the Department of the Army.”
President Donald Trump then ordered all U.S. government agencies to “immediately cease” using Anthropic’s technology. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ramped up the pressure, labeling Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security.” This designation means that contractors working with the Department of Defense cannot do business with Anthropic.
Asked by CNBC if the door was still open for Anthropic to work with the U.S. government, the FCC’s Kerr said the company should “try to course-correct as much as possible.”
“They were given a lot of off-ramps… a lot of opportunities to find a great landing spot and they chose not to do it. That was a mistake on their part,” Kerr added.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Anthropic said Friday that the move to blacklist the company is “sad” and “legally unsound and sets a dangerous precedent for American companies negotiating with the government.”
“We worked in good faith to reach an agreement with the Department of the Army, making it clear that we support all lawful uses of AI for national security, aside from domestic mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic said.
Just hours after Anthropic was blacklisted, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that the company had agreed terms with the Department of Defense regarding the use of its artificial intelligence models. Altman said Monday that OpenAI “should not have rushed” the deal with the Pentagon, adding that it “looks opportunistic and sloppy.”
OpenAI outlined revised terms of the agreement, including language clarifying that “AI systems will not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.”
-CNBC’s Ashley Capoot and Dylan Butts contributed to this report.
