{"id":66480,"date":"2026-06-08T19:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/66480\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:03:08","slug":"trump-memo-on-ai-aims-to-avoid-repeat-of-anthropic-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/66480\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump memo on AI aims to avoid repeat of Anthropic debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 For America\u2019s AI industry, the message in President Donald Trump\u2019s new memo on national security<\/a> is unmistakable: Uncle Sam wants you \u2014 unless you\u2019re Anthropic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course there\u2019s an exception to that exception: Anthropic\u2019s cutting-edge Claude Mythos<\/a>, which is in use at the NSA<\/a>, and for which the memo allows a waiver, showing just how complicated the administration\u2019s relationship with tech titans<\/a> has become. <\/p>\n

Overall, National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) 11, issued Friday<\/a>, aims to accelerate adoption of AI in national security. It seeks to streamline procurement, expand training, and enhance security in close collaboration with America\u2019s leading tech firms, while revoking Biden-era guardrails<\/a> it sees as too restrictive. But the memo also orders the \u201ctermination for default or for convenience\u201d of contracts with any company that tries to restrict how the government uses its AI, as the administration alleges Anthropic did<\/a>, with strictly limited waivers allowed for pressing needs, as reportedly<\/a> is the case at NSA.<\/p>\n

The memorandum is careful not to name specific companies. Nonetheless, AI and legal experts who spoke to Breaking Defense agree, as do many reputable<\/a> observers<\/a>, that the six-page policy edict is unmistakably shaped by the administration\u2019s ongoing legal battle with Anthropic<\/a> and its desire to strengthen its position for any future disputes with its AI contractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the attention will go towards the [memo\u2019s] discussions about working with companies, which clearly reflects the ongoing dispute between the Trump administration and Anthropic,\u201d former Pentagon policy official Mike Horowitz told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no question whatsoever, this comes from the Anthropic dispute,\u201d agreed Jack Shanahan<\/a>, who founded Project Maven and the Pentagon\u2019s Joint AI Center. \u201cThere\u2019s no other interpretation,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Anthropic\u2019s Claude was the first commercial Large Language Model authorized for use on classified networks. But in February<\/a>, the company questioned the reported use of Claude to plan combat operations against Venezuela and Iran. The administration retaliated by starting to switch to other companies\u2019 AIs<\/a> while cancelling all of Anthropic\u2019s federal contracts<\/a> on the grounds it was a \u201csupply chain risk,\u201d an action the company challenged in two parallel lawsuits.<\/p>\n

Experts are divided<\/a> on how the new memo impacts these ongoing cases. As a veteran of federal AI procurements, Shanahan thought the memo comes too late to affect a judge\u2019s ruling \u2014 which must be based on what held true at the time a suit was filed \u2014 but could give the administration a \u201cdo-over.\u201d If it loses the lawsuits, he told Breaking Defense, the administration could invoke the new policy directives in NSPM-11 as the basis to try cancelling Anthropic\u2019s contracts again.<\/p>\n

A lawyer specializing in federal procurement, however, thought that scenario would be a legal longshot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know their intent, but I never read this as a litigation hedge,\u201d said Jessica Tillipman<\/a>, associate dean at George Washington University. Instead, she argued, the memo seems to be looking at what went wrong with Anthropic and trying to shore up the Administration\u2019s position for the next fight, whenever and with whomever that may be.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s less about specific Anthropic [lawsuits] and more about an ongoing challenge within the government, which is dependency on single suppliers,\u201d she told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n

If the administration wants this reform to stick, Tillipman warned, it\u2019s not enough to issue this sweeping policy memorandum. It also has to implement it with individual companies, contract by contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear they want to be able to get rid of a contractor easier, including subcontractors,\u201d Tillipman said. \u201cI\u2019m waiting to see what that looks like in a clause.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specific wording of specific clauses is crucial, agreed the former CTO of the CIA<\/a>, Stanford Hoover Institution fellow Nand Mulchandani<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Anthropic thing was a contract issue that got out of hand,\u201d he told Breaking Defense. \u201cWhat this [memo] is doing, basically, is guiding officials who are negotiating the contracts, but it depends on the contract you write.\u201d<\/p>\n

This uncertainty about contract language, moreover, is just one way in which the ultimate impact of this memorandum will depend on the devilish details of how it\u2019s implemented. The other big unanswered question: What happens to the Pentagon\u2019s most important policy document imposing safety guardrails on military AI?<\/p>\n

Unanswered Questions On \u201cResponsible AI\u201d<\/p>\n

While NSPM-11 urges both government and industry to move faster to implement AI, the memorandum also emphasizes legal accountability and technical testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States can and will responsibly accelerate the use of AI across intelligence and warfighting domains in line with American values,\u201d the memo says<\/a>. \u201cWe will streamline the acquisition and deployment of these technologies while maintaining rigorous oversight \u2026 including testing, evaluation, validation, and verification.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s memo takes time to denounce the Biden administration\u2019s AI policy memorandum, NSM-25<\/a>, Shanahan told Breaking Defense,\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t see it as a dramatic break. It does emphasize the right things about testing, steerability, and controllability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horowitz, who helped author those Biden-era policies, agreed. \u201cIf you look past the rhetoric and the Trump Administration flourishes, there\u2019s a lot more continuity here than change,\u201d he told Breaking Defense. \u201cEven some of the changes are pretty common-sense. For example, updating the Pentagon directive on autonomous weapon systems was already announced, and it makes sense for policy to adapt as the technology changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But how the safeguards actually get implemented will depend heavily on the details of that updated directive, DoDD 3000.09 [PDF<\/a>], \u201cAutonomy in Weapons Systems,\u201d which was last updated under former President Joe Biden in 2023<\/a>. Trump\u2019s memo tasks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit a new version of 3000.09 within 90 days.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a tight deadline, said Shanahan, a veteran of such Pentagon policy deliberations, but it\u2019s entirely doable \u2014 if the rewrite is limited to modest changes. The current version of 3000.09 was written shortly after the release of ChaptGPT<\/a> and before the current explosion of AI, he noted for example, so those aspects could definitely use an update.<\/p>\n

A more sweeping overhaul, however, would be hard to do properly in three months, Shanahan warned. \u201cIt all depends on the extent of the changes that they\u2019re asking for,\u201d he told Breaking Defense. \u201cYou\u2019re going to see a lot of fingers crossed out there in the tech companies, waiting to see, is this a reasonable revision to 3000.09? If it is, they\u2019re going to breathe a sigh of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeed is great,\u201d Shanahan added. \u201cI\u2019m all for speed, but speed without proper test and evaluation is a catastrophe waiting to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 For America\u2019s AI industry, the message in President Donald Trump\u2019s new memo on national security is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37511,24,4602,1428,53,25,111,1393,37512,37513,37514,37515,37516,151,388,134],"class_list":["post-66480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-3000-09","tag-ai","tag-ai-autonomy","tag-ai-ethics","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-cyber-security","tag-gen-john-shanahan","tag-gen-michael-groen","tag-jessica-tillipman","tag-nand-mulchandani","tag-national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-11","tag-networks","tag-pentagon","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}