Appeals court backs Trump administration blacklist of Anthropic
The split ruling keeps Anthropic on a federal blacklist, reinforcing broad executive power over AI suppliers in defense contexts.
A federal appeals panel has allowed the Trump administration to maintain its blacklist of Anthropic after the company withheld certain AI capabilities. The 2-1 ruling says the government did not need to establish that Anthropic acted with malicious intent. The court said officials must weigh the dangers of restricting AI used in military operations against those of allowing less-constrained systems. It found that the defense secretary acted within his authority under the Supply Chain Security Act and the Constitution. The same court had rejected Anthropic’s request for an emergency pause in April.
Why it matters
The decision confirms that the administration can bar Anthropic’s technology without proving malicious intent, and that the defense secretary acted within existing legal authority. That keeps Anthropic excluded from government work while Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weigh the risks of tighter AI limits against the risks of looser systems in military use, extending the status quo set when the same court declined an emergency pause in April.
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Sources
- Ars Technica