Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg Television that Anthropic, a leading U.S. AI developer, has made peace with the administration. He made the comments at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in a conversation with Joe Mathieu, adding praise for the promise of artificial intelligence.
Offering a sign of warmer ties, an Anthropic leader joined Lutnick for a fireside chat during a G20 technology gathering in North Carolina on Wednesday. Lutnick also worked with Anthropic's Tom Brown, who was with him at the G20, to address the dispute that prompted the Commerce Department to temporarily impose export restrictions on Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models. The government rolled back those controls in late June, following a period of anxiety that malicious users could jailbreak models to tap advanced AI cyber capabilities.
The Pentagon's clash with Anthropic is a different fight that started early this year. Defense officials objected to what they viewed as unnecessary restrictions Anthropic wanted on military uses of its models, saying those limits would cut across the chain of command. After negotiations failed, the department labeled the company and its products a supply-chain threat and began steps to remove it from the contractor roster. Pentagon leaders, including Emil Michael, have said they plan to line up other AI servicers.
Anthropic has sued to reverse the Pentagon's designation. Last week, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled in the company's favor and instructed the government to remove the ban. The firm is also pressing an additional case before the federal appellate court in Washington, DC.
In a Thursday post on X, Michael wrote, "Anthropic is still a designated Supply Chain Risk at @DeptofWar and for the Defense Industrial Base. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" He did not mention the ongoing cases.
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Here is the rub: Commerce already walked back export limits in late June, yet Defense still treats Anthropic as a supply-chain risk even after a San Francisco judge pushed to lift the ban. If you are tracking AI exposure, this mismatch across agencies and the live appeal in Washington, DC shape which firms can win government work and how quickly those contracts might flow.
