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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Saturday publicly defended his company’s new Pentagon deal, just a day after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to cut ties with rival Anthropic.
Hours after the US and Israel launched a joint strike against Iran, Altman took X to answer questions about an agreement that allows the Department of War (DoW) to use OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) models in its classified network.
“I would like to answer questions about our work with the DoW and our thinking over the past few days,” he said.
In announcing the agreement late Friday, Altman wrote, “AI safety and the broad distribution of benefits are at the heart of our mission. Two of our most important security principles are the prohibition of mass surveillance at home and the human responsibility for the use of force, including autonomous weapons systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, they reflect them in law and policy, and we include them in our agreement.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended his company’s Pentagon deal after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to outsource rival Anthropic. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
The OpenAI deal came as Trump ordered all government agencies to stop using Anthropic technology, imposing a six-month exit period and intensifying the debate over how AI should be used in military operations.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he is directing the department to designate Anthropic a “national security threat.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei rejected the DoW’s demands to allow its AI to be used for “all legitimate purposes,” citing concerns about “mass domestic surveillance” and “totally autonomous weapons.”
When asked why the DoW accepted OpenAI but not Anthropic, Altman said, “Anthropic seemed to focus more on specific prohibitions in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt comfortable with.” He added that Anthropic “may have wanted more operational control than we did.”
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President Donald Trump has ordered federal agencies to cut ties with Anthropic, intensifying the debate over the military use of AI. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Altman said the DoW did not issue any explicit or implicit threats before the deal was reached, adding that Pentagon officials were “really surprised that we were willing to consider” a classified operation.
He said OpenAI was originally planning to do a separate project with the Pentagon, but talks accelerated this week.
“We thought DoW clearly needed an AI partner, and doing decentralized work is very complex. We said no to previous deals in decentralized settings that Anthropic took on. We started talking to DoW many months ago about our decentralized mission. This week things shifted into high gear on the decentralized side. We found DoW to be flexible to what we needed, and we want to support what we need,”
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Sam Altman answered questions at X about OpenAI’s classified work with the Department of Defense. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Altman also addressed criticism that the deal appeared rushed, saying OpenAI moved quickly to “de-escalate the situation.”
“I think the way things are now is dangerous for Anthropic, for healthy competition and for the US,” he said. “We have discussed to ensure that the same terms will be given to all other AI labs.”
Altman admitted he remains concerned that a future legal dispute could expose OpenAI to the same supply chain risk posed to Anthropic.
“If we have to fight that war, we will do it, but it clearly puts us in some danger,” he said. “I’m still very hopeful that this will be resolved, and part of why we wanted to act quickly was to help increase the chances of that.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrives to testify before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee titled “Winning the AI Race: Strengthening US Capabilities in Computing and Innovation,” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 8, (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Reuters)
Anthropic previously told Fox News Digital that Hegseth’s designation of the company as a procurement risk “follows months of discussions that have reached a crossroads over two things we’ve asked for in the official implementation of our AI model, Claude: mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons.”
Altman also answered questions about whether the federal government would try to nationalize OpenAI or other AI developments.
“Obviously I don’t know; I’ve thought about it … but it doesn’t seem very likely on the current trajectory,” he said. “That being said, I think that close cooperation between governments and companies that develop this technology is very important.”
Altman said the most difficult aspect of the settlement agreement involves “non-domestic observations.”
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“I’ve accepted that the American military is going to patrol the people of other countries, and I know that foreign governments are trying to do it to us, but I still don’t like it,” he said. “I think it’s really important for the public to think about the implications of this; maybe the one goal I care about most about AI is that it’s democratically controlled, and I can see surveillance making that worse.”
“On the other hand, I also respect the democratic process. I don’t think this is for me to decide,” he added.
