‘Attempted corporate murder’: Trump’s threats against Anthropic chill AI industry
The Trump administration has declared what one former adviser called "attempted corporate murder" against Anthropic — blacklisting the AI company as a national security supply-chain risk, ordering all federal agencies to cease using its technology, and threatening criminal prosecution if it doesn't cooperate. The trigger: Anthropic's refusal to allow Claude to be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. Hours later, OpenAI struck its own Pentagon deal with the exact same ethical restrictions accepted — leaving the industry baffled at why one company got a handshake and the other got a death sentence. Legal experts warn this could amount to "partial nationalization of the AI industry," bipartisan senators are calling for de-escalation, and Anthropic says it will fight in court.