A rapidly concluded agreement between OpenAI and the U.S. Department of Defense has triggered scrutiny, with CEO Sam Altman admitting the move was “definitely rushed” and that “the optics don’t look good.” The development followed stalled negotiations between Anthropic and the Pentagon. On Friday, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology after a 6-month transition period, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth designated the company as a supply-chain risk. Soon after, OpenAI announced a deal to deploy its models in classified environments.
With Anthropic stating it had drawn red lines against fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance, and Altman saying OpenAI had the same boundaries, questions quickly emerged. Was OpenAI consistent about its safeguards? Why did it secure a deal when Anthropic could not? In response, OpenAI executives defended the agreement on social media and published a blog post outlining their framework. The company identified 3 prohibited uses for its models: mass domestic surveillance, autonomous weapon systems, and “high-stakes automated decisions (e.g. systems such as ‘social credit’).”
OpenAI said that unlike other AI companies that have “reduced or removed their safety guardrails and relied primarily on usage policies as their primary safeguards in national security deployments,” its contract protects red lines through “a more expansive, multi-layered approach.” The blog stated, “We retain full discretion over our safety stack, we deploy via cloud, cleared OpenAI personnel are in the loop, and we have strong contractual protections.” It added that these measures operate alongside existing U.S. laws and noted, “We don’t know why Anthropic could not reach this deal, and we hope that they and more labs will consider it.”
However, a journalist argued that the agreement “absolutely does allow for domestic surveillance,” pointing to compliance with Executive Order 12333, which he described as enabling overseas data collection that may include U.S. persons’ communications. On LinkedIn, OpenAI’s head of national security partnerships, Katrina Mulligan, said critics wrongly assume “the only thing standing between Americans and the use of AI for mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons is a single usage policy provision in a single contract with the Department of War.” She added, “That’s not how any of this works,” stressing that cloud-based deployment prevents direct integration into weapons or hardware. On X, Altman said, “We really wanted to de-escalate things, and we thought the deal on offer was good,” adding that if it leads to de-escalation “we will look like geniuses,” otherwise the company will be seen as “rushed and uncareful.”
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