A federal court has overturned the U.S. Defense Department’s ban on Anthropic PBC’s artificial intelligence models.
Judge Rita Lin wrote in a late Thursday ruling that the Pentagon’s move was “illegal and baseless.”
The saga began in fall 2025, when the Defense Department approached Anthropic about bringing Claude to an internal platform called GenAI.mil. The government took issue with a section of the company’s terms of use. The relevant clause specifies that customers may not use Claude to conduct mass surveillance of Americans or build autonomous weapons.
The Defense Department asked Anthropic to replace the provision with wording that permits “all lawful uses” of Claude. The AI provider refused, which led U.S. President Donald Trump to ban federal agencies from using its models. Around the same time, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk. The latter move prohibited defense contractors from using Claude.
In March, Anthropic sued to reverse the ban. The court ruled in favor of the company after dismissing both of the Defense Department’s core legal arguments.
The Pentagon alleged that Anthropic has “backdoor access to its technology once deployed in a national security system.” During the court proceeds, U.S. officials acknowledged that the company has no such access.
“It is now clear that Anthropic undisputedly lacks any such access and that, as Defendants concede, Anthropic’s technology is itself no riskier to the national security than any other ‘black box’ artificial intelligence model,” reads the court order.
The Pentagon’s second argument in favor of the ban was that Anthropic criticized its positions on AI and demonstrated “increasingly hostile manners through the press.” This January, Chief Executive Dario Amodei penned an essay that flagged the risks posed by AI-powered surveillance and autonomous weapons. He also gave multiple media interviews about the topic.
“Neither the Constitution nor the federal statute invoked by Defendants allows them to impose sweeping penalties based principally on Anthropic’s critique of the Administration’s views,” Judge Lin wrote.
The order also noted that the Pentagon’s AI usage policies were inconsistent with the stance expressed in the lawsuit. The Defense Department has been using Claude since last March. Additionally, officials indicated that Anthropic could be destined as essential to national security shortly before the ban was announced.
“We welcome the court’s ruling that this supply chain risk designation was unlawful,” Anthropic said in a statement. “We remain focused on working productively with the government to harness AI for our national security so all Americans benefit from this technology.”
The order reversing the ban was issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. When Anthropic sued the Pentagon in March, it also filed a complaint with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. According to CNBC, the judge reviewing that complaint will also have to rule in favor of the company before the Pentagon’s Claude ban is officially lifted.