Designer of Advanced US Weapons Calls Donald Trump a Dictator

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has criticised U.S. President Donald Trump after his AI product was given a label of ‘supply chain risk’, restricting Claude, Anthropic’s AI, from use by companies holding contracts with the U.S. government. In an internal memo cited by The Information, Amodei alleged that the U.S. Department of Defence blocked the company because it did not donate to Trump’s campaign. ‘The real reason the Department of Defence and the Trump administration do not like us is that we did not donate to Trump. We do not praise Trump as a dictator, while Sam does,’ Amodei said. Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, Anthropic’s main AI rival, famous for its ChatGPT chatbot. OpenAI signed a deal with the Pentagon as an AI technology provider after Anthropic was ousted. OpenAI president Greg Brockman is reported to have donated US$25 million to Trump-supporting campaign funds, while Altman gave US$1 million to the Trump inauguration fund in 2024. The dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon was reportedly triggered by Claude’s use in the U.S. military’s attack on Venezuela. Anthropic forbids the use of its AI to support autonomous weapons operations or to spy on U.S. citizens, and Altman is said to have exploited the situation to offer OpenAI to the Department of Defence. However, Altman’s move angered many OpenAI users and sparked a campaign to uninstall ChatGPT from mobile devices. Sensor Tower data show that the volume of mobile ChatGPT uninstalls nearly quadrupled on Saturday, 28 February 2026. The spike occurred shortly after OpenAI announced a deal with the U.S. Department of Defence, which is now named the Department of War. The 295 per cent surge far exceeded the average ChatGPT uninstall rate of just 9 per cent in the last 30 days. Meanwhile, the number of downloads for Anthropic’s Claude, a rival to ChatGPT, rose 37 per cent on Friday and jumped 51 per cent on Saturday. Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic announced that they no longer work with the U.S. Department of Defence. The decision by Trump and U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth to label Anthropic a supply chain risk was also protested by other U.S. tech giants. The status had previously been granted only to companies affiliated with an ‘enemy’ of the U.S. A technology trade association whose members include Nvidia, Amazon, and Apple sent an open letter to Hegseth, expressing concern that the Defence Department is issuing a supply chain risk label merely due to procurement disputes. ‘The label could prevent the government from accessing the best products and services from U.S. companies that have worked with various federal agencies,’ the letter stated.