Anthropic wins early court fight over Pentagon blacklist and Trump ban

Anthropic won a key early court victory after a federal judge in San Francisco granted the AI startup’s request for a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from enforcing actions that blacklisted the company and restricted federal agencies from using its Claude models.

US District Judge Rita Lin found that Anthropic had shown a likelihood of success on core parts of its case, writing that the government’s actions appeared more punitive than security-driven. Reuters reported that Lin said punishing Anthropic for drawing public attention to the government’s contracting position appeared to be illegal First Amendment retaliation.

The order bars the administration, for now, from implementing or enforcing President Donald Trump’s directive against Anthropic and from advancing the Pentagon’s effort to treat the company as a national security supply chain risk. Reuters reported that the ruling is stayed for seven days to allow the government time to appeal.

The dispute began after Anthropic refused to remove safety restrictions from Claude in Pentagon negotiations fully. The company said it would not agree to uses tied to fully autonomous weapons without human supervision or to mass surveillance of Americans, even as it remained open to broader government work.

Trump then moved in late February to order federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth separately labeled the company a supply chain risk, a designation that could force defense contractors to avoid Claude in military work. Anthropic argued that this was the first time such a label had been publicly used against an American company in this way.

The stakes are high because Anthropic has become an important AI vendor to the US government. The company had a $200 million Pentagon contract and had already deployed models across Defense Department classified networks before the relationship broke down over usage terms.

The Trump administration relied on separate legal authorities for the Pentagon blacklist and for wider federal procurement restrictions, forcing Anthropic to challenge them in different courts. A separate case tied to civilian government contracting is still moving forward in Washington.