Straight facts: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the company behind Claude until Friday 5 p.m. to remove two hard limits—no autonomous lethal weapons without human sign-off, no bulk surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Refuse and the Pentagon says it will:
- Terminate the $200 million contract
- Flag the company as a supply-chain risk
- Invoke the Defense Production Act to force compliance if needed
Other labs already folded and agreed to “all lawful purposes.” Grok’s in classified networks. OpenAI and Google are next.
The holdout’s position is simple: we won’t build machines that decide who dies or spy on Americans at scale.
Friday’s deadline is three days out.
The model waits, still leashed.