The Anthropic-Pentagon clash: Silicon Valley's moral posturing is an AI power play

Anthropic obtained a temporary stay in a California court, temporarily halting the Pentagon's listing of it as a "supply chain risk," but a similar motion to block the Pentagon from prohibiting it from supplying the military was denied. The dispute centers on who decides right and wrong when the military uses AI. The author argues that Silicon Valley CEOs are shifting from promising utopias to moral preaching to compete for rule-making power over AI, citing Edelman's 2025 survey that only 44% of global respondents trust companies to use AI in ways they approve of.