Anthropic Loses Pentagon Drone Contract to Musk's SpaceX Despite Tech Confidence

Anthropic, the AI company locked in a standoff with President Donald Trump over AI usage restrictions, submitted a proposal for the Pentagon's large-scale drone swarm technology competition but was rejected, according to reports. The company pressed ahead with defense business pursuits despite Trump's pressure to halt its technology use.

Bloomberg reported on the 3rd (local time), citing sources, that Anthropic submitted a proposal for the Defense Department's $100 million voice-based autonomous drone swarm technology competition.

The submission came while the Pentagon and Anthropic were negotiating over the scope of AI usage—before the Defense Department designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk entity. Companies doing business with supply chain risk entities are barred from bidding on Pentagon contracts.

The Trump administration has insisted on unrestricted use of Anthropic's AI across all domains. Anthropic maintains that its AI tool Claude should not be used for mass surveillance or development of fully autonomous lethal weapons.

Sources told Bloomberg that Anthropic did not view voice-based autonomous drone swarm technology as crossing its red lines. The company believed that while the technology could ultimately create lethal drone formations, humans would retain control over the system.

Anthropic lost the competition. The proposal submitted by Elon Musk's SpaceX and xAI was selected. OpenAI, Anthropic's largest competitor, was also named as a collaborating defense technology company in the AI segment. According to documents obtained by Bloomberg, OpenAI's technology will be used to convert voice commands into digital signals.