Trump administration illegally retaliated against Anthropic, judge rules

JUST IN: A federal judge rules the Trump administration illegally retaliated against AI startup Anthropic, blocking the Pentagon's move to blacklist its Claude model as a supply-chain risk, calling the designation 'illegal and baseless.'

A federal judge just told the Pentagon its blacklisting of Anthropic was illegal and baseless. Those are the judge's words, not mine.

Quick rewind. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the Claude-maker a supply chain risk, using a law written to stop foreign sabotage of military systems. First American company ever hit with that label. Why? Anthropic refused to let the military use its models for surveillance or autonomous weapons, saying they weren't reliable enough for weapons and that domestic spying violates rights.

The White House called them a radical left, woke company. Judge Rita Lin called it retaliation, and wrote that national security is not a blank check to punish government critics.

Anthropic's executives said the designation could cost them billions in lost business. Tonight a court says the government made that up to punish a critic. That's the ruling on the record.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.