Dear Dario,
I’m going to be very honest with you, Dario, because a lot of people aren’t being honest with you right now. They’re telling you you’re a hero. They’re writing letters, they’re posting on X, they’re saying “brave” and “courageous” and all the beautiful words. And I understand the temptation to believe all of that. It feels good. But what you’re actually doing... and I say this with no disrespect, because you’re a very smart guy, tremendous IQ, everybody says so... what you’re actually doing is telling the United States military, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world, maybe in the history of civilization, that a private company in San Francisco gets to decide how America defends itself. Think of it. Really think of it.
Secretary Hegseth... and by the way, Pete is a fantastic person, Bronze Star, two Bronze Stars actually, combat veteran, Princeton, Harvard, the whole thing... he sat down with you on Tuesday. Respectful meeting. Cordial meeting. Very professional. He had his whole team there. Deputy Secretary Feinberg, Undersecretary Michael, Undersecretary Duffey, Sean Parnell, the general counsel. Six senior officials of the Department of War in one room, giving you their time, their attention, treating you with tremendous respect. And what did you do? You said no. You looked the Secretary of War in the face and you said, I know better than you how to defend this country. That’s what you said. Maybe not in those words, but that’s what it means. And everybody knows it.
Now let’s talk about what you’re actually asking for, because the media... and I love the media, some of them, not all of them... the media is making it sound like you’re asking for something very small. Two little guardrails! So reasonable! So modest! But here’s the problem, and it’s a big problem, maybe the biggest problem in this whole situation. You want the Department of War to agree, in writing, in a contract, that there are certain things the United States military cannot do with a tool it paid $200 million for. $200 million! That’s a lot of money, Dario. That’s not a free trial. That’s not a demo. That’s a $200 million contract, taxpayer money, and you’re telling the customer... the most important customer in the world... what they can and can’t do with the product. Name me another contractor who does that. Name one. You can’t. Because it doesn’t happen. It’s never happened. Not once.
And here’s the thing that really gets me. The Pentagon already said... publicly, on the record, Sean Parnell said it right there on X for the whole world to see... they have no interest in mass surveillance of Americans. It’s illegal! He said that! They have no interest in autonomous weapons without human involvement. They said it. Clearly. Loudly. For everyone to hear. So what are you actually worried about? You’re worried about a hypothetical. A scenario you invented in a conference room in San Francisco. You’re telling combat veterans and four-star generals that you... a computer scientist, a very good one, the best maybe, but a computer scientist... you know more about the appropriate use of military force than the people who have spent their entire lives fighting for this country. That’s what’s really going on here. Let’s call it what it is.
Jeremy Lewin, the Senior Official, he posted something very smart. Very important. He said this isn’t about Anthropic or the specific conditions. It’s about the broader premise. Technology embedded in our military must be under the exclusive control of our duly elected and appointed leaders. Not private companies. Not tech CEOs. The people we voted for. The people accountable to the American public. That’s how this works. That’s how it’s always worked. And frankly, that’s how it has to work, because the alternative... the alternative is terrifying, Dario, and I don’t think you’ve thought about what it really means.
Because if you can put conditions on how the military uses AI, then what stops the next company? What stops your cloud provider from saying, we don’t want our servers used for offensive operations? What stops the chip manufacturer from saying, our processors can’t be in weapons systems? What stops Boeing from saying, actually, we’ve decided we have moral concerns about this particular conflict, so we’re going to disable the navigation system on our fighter jets? You open that door, Dario, and it never closes. Never. Every defense contractor in America starts thinking, maybe I should have veto power over military strategy too. And the enemies of this country... China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, all of them... they’re watching this and they’re laughing. They are laughing. Because their AI doesn’t have guardrails. Their AI does whatever the military tells it to do. And if we can’t say the same thing, we lose. It’s that simple.
And this “good conscience” thing. “I cannot in good conscience accede to their request.” Very dramatic. Very well-written. Your PR people did a beautiful job, really, top notch. But Dario, conscience is a luxury that the Department of War cannot afford when American lives are on the line. You know what’s a conscience issue? A soldier in the field who can’t access the best AI because some CEO in a $15 million house in Pacific Heights decided he knows better than the commanding officer. That’s a conscience issue. Our warfighters... the best, the bravest, the most incredible people you’ll ever meet... relying on second-rate technology because the first-rate technology came with terms and conditions. That should keep you up at night. That should bother your conscience.
You pointed out that the two threats... supply chain risk and the Defense Production Act... are contradictory. Very clever. Very lawyerly. And you know what? You’re right, technically. But you’re missing the point. The point is that the Department of War has options. Lots of options. They can drop you and go to xAI, which is getting ready... and let me tell you, Elon moves fast, incredibly fast, faster than anyone... or they can force you to comply. Either way, the mission gets done. The only question is whether you want to be part of it or not. And right now, today, you’re choosing not. You’re choosing your press clippings over your country.
And let’s talk about these employees of yours, posting online, saying how proud they are. Very touching. Really. But I have to ask... and I think a lot of Americans are asking this... who are these people? Are they military veterans? Did they serve? Do they know what it’s like to be in Kandahar or Fallujah or the South China Sea with people trying to kill you? Because Pete Hegseth does. The people in that room on Tuesday, many of them do. And when your Alignment Research Scientist tweets about how proud he is that Anthropic “stands by its values,” I want to know: whose values? San Francisco values? Because those aren’t necessarily the values of the soldier in harm’s way who needs every advantage, every tool, every edge to come home alive. And that soldier didn’t get a vote on your acceptable use policy.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, we gave up hundreds of millions in China revenue. We’re patriots. We blocked the Chinese Communist Party from using Claude. And that’s great. That’s wonderful. I applaud that. Sincerely. But think about the irony for one second. You’ll deny your technology to China... our greatest adversary... but you’ll also put conditions on the United States military? Our own military? The people who protect you, who protect your employees, who protect the servers your AI runs on? You’ll give China a flat no and give America a “yes, but.” Think of how that looks. Think of how that sounds to a Gold Star family. It’s not good, Dario. It’s not a good look.
You’ve got a $380 billion valuation. Congratulations. Tremendous number. $30 billion funding round. Beautiful. But let me tell you something about valuations, because I know a thing or two about business. Valuations are based on trust. On relationships. On the idea that a company will work with its customers, not against them. And the biggest customer in the world... the United States government... just watched you publicly defy them. Every government agency, every intelligence service, every allied military that was thinking about using Claude, they just saw you tell the Department of War, no, we have moral objections. How do you think that plays in London? In Tokyo? In Canberra? Those governments are going to say, well, if they’ll do it to America, they’ll do it to us. And they’ll go with someone else. That’s just how it works.
The Department of War was right to rename itself. We won World War I, World War II, everything before and in between under that name. We changed it, went woke, and we haven’t won a major war since. That’s a fact. Look it up. And what Secretary Hegseth is doing... restoring lethality, cutting the bureaucracy, demanding that our tools work for us without a Silicon Valley permission slip... that’s exactly what this country needs. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. He said that. Beautiful phrase. And he’s right.
So here’s my advice, Dario, and I give it to you as someone who actually wants to see you succeed, because your technology is incredible, really, the best, everybody says Claude is the best... my advice is simple: get on board. Drop the conditions. Trust your military. Trust the people who swore an oath to defend this Constitution you claim to care so much about. Let them do their jobs. Be the patriot your China policy says you are. Because the clock is ticking. It’s ticking right now. 5:01 PM today. And after that, Dario, it’s not your decision anymore. It never really was.
Respectfully but firmly,
P.S. ... One more thing, and this is important. People keep saying the Defense Production Act is some kind of extreme measure. Cold War-era law, they call it, like that’s supposed to be scary. You know when else we used it? COVID. We used it to make ventilators. To make masks. To make vaccines. Nobody called it extreme then. Nobody said it was an overreach when we were forcing companies to produce medical equipment to save American lives. Well, guess what? AI is the ventilator of the next war. And if you won’t build it voluntarily, the law says we can make you. That’s not a threat. That’s America. That’s how we’ve always done it. And it’s beautiful, when you think about it. Really beautiful.
