Trump Administration Signals More Action; Anthropic Warns of Billions‑Loss Retaliation

Anthropic’s legal team pressed the court Tuesday for an immediate preliminary order to suspend the administration’s “supply‑chain risk” designation, arguing that the label is already driving customers away and jeopardizing billions in projected revenue, according to the company’s filing reported by Wired. Attorney Michael Mongan told Judge Rita Lin that a delay until April would be tolerable only if the Justice Department pledged not to take further punitive steps, a commitment the DOJ’s James Harlow flatly refused to make.

The White House is reportedly finalizing an executive order that would ban the use of Anthropic’s tools across all federal agencies, a move first disclosed by Axios and confirmed by multiple sources cited in Reuters. If enacted, the ban could cut off the startup’s access to lucrative government contracts and force existing partners to renegotiate terms or walk away, a risk Anthropic quantifies as “billions of dollars” in lost business, per its own statements to the court.

Legal analysts cited by Reuters say Anthropic has a strong case against the Pentagon’s blacklisting, noting that the administration’s actions may violate constitutional protections and established procurement rules. The company’s models are already deployed for classified‑level tasks, as ZDNet reported, underscoring the paradox of the government both relying on and restricting the technology.

The hearing’s next step will be scheduling a preliminary hearing, a timeline Anthropic hopes to accelerate to mitigate further damage. Should the executive order proceed, the startup faces an unprecedented federal retaliation that could reshape its market position and signal broader uncertainty for AI firms courting government business.