OpenAI’s Sam Altman said the company will amend its deal with the Defense Department (or the Department of War) to explicitly prohibit the use of its AI system on mass surveillance against Americans. Altman has published an internal memo previously sent to employees on X, telling them that the company will tweak the agreement to add language to make that point especially clear. Specifically, it says:

“Consistent with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Security Act of 1947, FISA Act of 1978, the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Department understands this limitation to prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information.”

Altman has also claimed in the memo that the agency affirmed that its services will not be used by its intelligence agencies, including the NSA, without a modification to their contract. He added that if he received what he believed was an unconstitutional order, he would rather go to jail than follow it.

In addition, the OpenAI CEO has admitted in the memo that the company shouldn’t have rushed to get the deal out on Friday, February 27, since the issues were “super complex and demand clear communication.” Altman explained that the company was “trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome” but it “looked opportunistic” in the end. If you’ll recall, OpenAI announced the partnership shortly after President Trump ordered all US government agencies to stop using Claude and any other Anthropic services. To note, Anthropic started working with the US government in 2024.

The Defense Department and Secretary Pete Hegseth had been pressuring Anthropic with to remove its AI’s guardrails so that it can be used for all “lawful” purposes. Those include mass surveillance and the development of fully autonomous weapons. Anthropic refused to bow down to Hegseth’s demands and in a statement said that “no amount of intimidation or punishment” will change its “position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.” Trump issued the order as a result. The Defense Department had also taken the first steps to designate Anthropic as a “supply chain risk,” which is typically reserved for Chinese companies believed to be working with their country’s government.

Altman said that in his conversations with US officials, he reiterated that Anthropic shouldn’t be designated as a supply chain risk and that he hoped the Defense Department would offer it the same deal OpenAI agreed to. In an AMA session on X over the weekend, Altman clarified that he didn’t know the details of Anthropic’s agreement and how it differed from the one OpenAI signed. But if it had been the same, he thought Anthropic should have agreed to it.

After the news broke out about OpenAI’s deal, Anthropic climbed its way to the number one spot of the App Store's Top Free Apps leaderboard, beating out both ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Anthropic, capitalizing on Claude’s sudden popularity, launched a memory import tool to make switching to its chatbot from another company’s easier. Meanwhile, uninstalls for ChatGPT’s jumped by 295 percent day-over-day, according to Sensor Tower.

OpenAI has reached an agreement with the Defense Department to deploy its models in the agency’s network, company chief Sam Altman has revealed on X. In his post, he said two of OpenAI’s most important safety principles are “prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.” Altman claimed the company put those principles in its agreement with the agency, which he called by the government’s preferred name of Department of War (DoW), and that it had agreed to honor them.

The agency has closed the deal with OpenAI, shortly after President Donald Trump ordered all government agencies to stop using Claude and any other Anthropic services. If you’ll recall, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously threatened to label Anthropic “supply chain risk” if it continues refusing to remove the guardrails on its AI, which are preventing the technology to be used for mass surveillance against Americans and in fully autonomous weapons.

It’s unclear why the government agreed to team up with OpenAI if its models also have the same guardrails, but Altman said it’s asking the government to offer the same terms to all the AI companies it works with. Jeremy Lewin, the Senior Official Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, said on X that DoW “references certain existing legal authorities and includes certain mutually agreed upon safety mechanisms” in its contracts. Both OpenAI and xAI, which had also previously signed a deal to deploy Grok in the DoW’s classified systems, agreed to those terms. He said it was the same “compromise that Anthropic was offered, and rejected.”

Anthropic, which started working with the US government in 2024, refused to bow down to Hegseth. In its latest statement, published just hours before Altman announced OpenAI’s agreement, it repeated its stance. “No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic wrote. “We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”

Altman added in his post on X that OpenAI will build technical safeguards to ensure the company’s models behave as they should, claiming that’s also what the DoW wanted. It’s sending engineers to work with the agency to “ensure [its models’] safety,” and it will only deploy on cloud networks. As The New York Times notes, OpenAI is not yet on Amazon cloud, which the government uses. But that could change soon, as company has also just announced forming a partnership with Amazon to run its models on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for enterprise customers.