US High-Tech Weapons Supplier Dismissed by Trump, Rival Calls Him a Fraud

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The chief of a United States high-tech weapons supplier who was recently ousted by President Donald Trump is furious. His rival accuses him of lying and pretending to be benevolent. Anthropic recently lost a contract as a provider of AI technology for the US Department of Defence. The decision was taken because Anthropic refused to relax its policy prohibiting the use of their AI for autonomous weapons and for spying on US citizens. Instead, the US government signed an agreement with OpenAI. The company behind ChatGPT was chosen as the provider of AI models for the government’s classified network. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei expressed his anger in an internal memo addressed to the AI company’s staff. In the memo, he accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of deceiving the public. He described the narrative OpenAI has put out as a ‘lie’ and called Altman ‘someone who wants to present himself as a peacemaker and a great negotiator.’ “The main reason [OpenAI] accepted [the Pentagon deal] and we [Anthropic] did not is because they did not want to anger their clients, whereas we want to prevent exploitation,” Amodei said in the internal letter cited by The Information. On the other hand, Altman said their contract with the Pentagon also imposes the same restrictions as Anthropic. In a company blog, OpenAI stated that all their AI systems can be used as long as they comply with the law. “It is very clear in our interactions with the Department of Defense that domestic spying is illegal and the AI will not be used for that purpose,” OpenAI said. Americans appear to back Anthropic. They rushed to uninstall ChatGPT from their smartphones after the ChatGPT maker announced the collaboration with the Trump-era Department of Defense. Sensor Tower data showed that the volume of ChatGPT mobile app uninstalls almost quadrupled on Saturday, 28 February 2026. The spike occurred shortly after OpenAI announced the deal with the US Department of Defense, which is now referred to as the Pentagon. The 295 percent surge was well above the 9 percent average uninstall rate over the previous 30 days. Meanwhile, downloads of Claude, Anthropic’s competitor, rose 37 percent on Friday and then jumped 51 percent on Saturday. Unlike OpenAI, Anthropic announced that they were no longer working with the US Department of Defense. “I think attempts to twist the facts do not play well with the public and the media. Most people see the OpenAI-Pentagon deal as suspicious, and they see us as heroes,” Amodei said.