GoKawiilDefense Department CTO Emil Michael on Thursday said Anthropic's Claude artificial intelligence models would "pollute" the agency's supply chain because they have "a different policy preference" that is baked in.
"We can't have a company that has a different policy preference that is baked into the model through its constitution, its soul, its policy preferences, pollute the supply chain so our warfighters are getting ineffective weapons, ineffective body armor, ineffective protection," Michael told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "That's really where the supply chain risk designation came from."
Anthropic is the first American company to publicly be labeled a supply chain risk, an extraordinary move that's historically been reserved for foreign adversaries. The designation will require defense contractors and vendors to certify that they don't use Claude in their work with the Pentagon.
Michael's comments on Thursday are the clearest explanation the DOD has offered about why it believes Anthropic is a supply chain risk. The agency sent an official letter to notify the company about the designation earlier this month, but the letter did not outline what risk Claude poses to national security.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration on Monday, calling the government's actions "unprecedented and unlawful." Anthropic said in a filing that the company was being harmed "irreparably," and that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts are in jeopardy.
"This is not meant to be punitive," Michael said Thursday.
He added that Anthropic has a "huge commercial business," and that a "tiny fraction" comes from the U.S. government. Michael also dismissed Anthropic's claim that the government has actively reached out to companies and told them them not to use Anthropic, calling the notion "rumors."
"The Department of War is not reaching out to companies to tell them what to do, so long as it's not in our supply chain," he said.