President Donald Trump on Tuesday told CNBC that "it's possible" there will be a deal allowing Anthropic's artificial intelligence models to be used within the Department of Defense.
"They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them, and I think they're shaping up," Trump said during an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "They're very smart, and I think they can be of great use."
Trump's comments land after a high profile clash between the Pentagon and Anthropic spilled into public view earlier this year.
The Department of Defense declared Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, meaning that use of the company's technology purportedly threatens U.S. national security. The label requires defense contractors to certify that they don't use Anthropic's Claude AI models in their work with the military.
Trump also ordered all federal agencies to "IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic's technology" in a Truth Social post, adding that his administration would "not do business with them again."
Anthropic later sued the Trump administration in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. to try and reverse it's blacklisting, and Trump's social media directive has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
The AI startup, which was founded in 2021, had become an early favorite among technologists in Washington, and many were surprised by its sudden ouster. Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon in July, but as the company began negotiating Claude's deployment on the DOD's GenAI.mil AI platform in September, talks collapsed.
The DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the Pentagon unfettered access to its models across all lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.
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