Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration after “confirming” the Department of War designated it as a “supply chain risk to America’s national security.” “The language used by the Department of War in the letter (even supposing it was legally sound) matches our statement on Friday that the vast majority of our customers are unaffected by a supply chain risk designation,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a statement. “With respect to our customers, it plainly applies only to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the Department of War, not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts,” he continued. Anthropic sues Trump admin over supply-chain risk label https://t.co/JTMFuOh7Zu — POLITICO (@politico) March 9, 2026 CNBC explained further: The company said in a complaint that these actions are “unprecedented and unlawful,” and that they are “harming Anthropic irreparably.” The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. “Anthropic’s contracts with the federal government are already being canceled. Current and future contracts with private parties are also in doubt, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars in the near-term,” the filing says. “On top of those immediate economic harms, Anthropic’s reputation and core First Amendment freedoms are under attack. Absent judicial relief, those harms will only compound in the weeks and months ahead.” The lawsuit is the latest episode in a dramatic two-week saga between Anthropic and the Trump administration over how the company’s AI models can be used on the battlefield and elsewhere. Before the spat between the two sides escalated into the public’s view late last month, Anthropic served as an early partner across many U.S. agencies as the government sought to rapidly upgrade its systems and capabilities with cutting-edge AI technology. On Thursday, Anthropic confirmed that it had officially been designated a supply chain risk, an extraordinary move that has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries. It will require defense vendors and contractors to certify that they don’t use Anthropic’s models in their work with the Pentagon. “The Department’s letter has a narrow scope, and this is because the relevant statute (10 USC 3252) is narrow, too. It exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier; in fact, the law requires the Secretary of War to use the least restrictive means necessary to accomplish the goal of protecting the supply chain,” Amodei said. “Even for Department of War contractors, the supply chain risk designation doesn’t (and can’t) limit uses of Claude or business relationships with Anthropic if those are unrelated to their specific Department of War contracts,” he continued. Axios has more: Procurement laws passed by Congress do not give the Pentagon or President Trump the power to blacklist a company, Anthropic says. Companies including Microsoft and Google have said they’ll be able to continue non-defense related work with Anthropic. A second, shorter lawsuit was filed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals because another statute the government invoked can only be challenged there and similar arguments are being made there, Anthropic says. The company is seeking relief in both jurisdictions. The Pentagon argues the dispute is about operational control, not speech. Department officials say this has always been about the military’s ability to use technology legally, without a vendor inserting itself into the chain of command and putting warfighters at risk.