GoKawiilDario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026.
A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., is set to hear arguments on Tuesday in Anthropic's lawsuit over its blacklisting by the Department of Defense, the latest faceoff in the months-long clash between the Pentagon and one of the country's leading AI companies.
The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the DOD, and Anthropic will each have 15 minutes to present their case to a panel of three circuit judges, according to an order earlier this month. Judge Karen Henderson, Judge Gregory Katsas and Judge Neomi Rao will then take the matter under advisement and issue a written opinion.
Proceedings will begin at 9:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
Anthropic sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the DOD in March after the agency declared the AI startup a supply chain risk, meaning it purportedly threatens U.S. national security. The label has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries, and requires defense contractors to certify that they will not use Anthropic's Claude models in their work with the military.
The designation landed after months of tense negotiations between Anthropic and the DOD collapsed. The DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the Pentagon unfettered access to its models across all lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.
The two sides failed to reach an agreement, and Hegseth blacklisted Anthropic and bashed the company on social media. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company had "no choice" but to challenge the supply chain risk designation in court.
The DOD continued to use Anthropic's models to support its military operations Iran, and President Donald Trump told CNBC last month that a deal between the DOD and the startup is "possible."