Days after OpenAI struck a deal with the U.S. Department of War (DOW) over use of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) models on classified networks, its CEO Sam Altman said that the deal appeared sloppy and opportunistic, as it occurred just after Anthropic’s fallout with the U.S. government.
Altman stepped up the deal after the showdown between Anthropic and DOW resulted in the former getting labelled as a “supply chain risk” as President Donald Trump attacked its CEO for allegedly trying to arm-twist the government.
“One thing I think I did wrong: we shouldn’t have rushed to get this out on Friday. The issues are super complex, and demand clear communication. We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy,” said Altman.
Here is re-post of an internal post:
We have been working with the DoW to make some additions in our agreement to make our principles very clear.
1. We are going to amend our deal to add this language, in addition to everything else:
“• Consistent with applicable laws,…
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 3, 2026
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had objected to the use of Anthropic’s Claude AI model for domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens and fully autonomous AI weapons.
OpenAI’s Altman also defended Anthropic saying he hoped that the supply-chain risk label would be removed by the U.S. government.
“In my conversations over the weekend, I reiterated that Anthropic should not be designated as a SCR, and that we hope the DoW offers them the same terms we’ve agreed to,” said Altman.
Sam also added that the OpenAI-DOW deal has been amended to prohibit DOW from using their services for domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Altman said that two additional clauses have been added to the OpenAI-DOW deal to prohibit their AI systems to be “intentionally” used for domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Security Act of 1947, and FISA Act of 1978.
“It’s critical to protect the civil liberties of Americans, and there was so much focus on this, that we wanted to make this point especially clear, including around commercially acquired information,” said Altman on X.
The OpenAI CEO also informed that the deal will not involve their services being used by any intelligence agencies associated with DOW and for that, a follow up modification would be required.
Referring to the recent deal between OpenAI and DOW, after the public fallout between the latter and Anthropic, Altman says he regretted the timing of the deal.
Post the fallout, the U.S. government also issued an order prohibiting all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic AI in their systems. After the prohibitory orders came from President Trump, the U.S. The Treasury Department, State Department and the Federal Housing Agency have terminated the use of Anthropic and switched to its rival OpenAI, according to a report by Reuters.
