Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has restarted negotiations with Pentagon officials after previous AI contract talks collapsed, the Financial Times reported. Amodei met with Emil Michael, under-secretary of defense for research and engineering, in a last-ditch effort to salvage a deal for using Anthropic's AI models in defense applications.

Disagreements had centered on Anthropic's concerns about preventing its technology from being used for mass domestic surveillance and lethal autonomous weapons. The company found the Pentagon's proposed terms for analyzing bulk-acquired data suspicious. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had threatened to designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk when negotiations broke down.

Anthropic, backed by Amazon and Alphabet, had previously signed a $200 million deal with the Pentagon in July 2025 to use its AI models with classified defense data. The breakdown came shortly after rival OpenAI secured its own Pentagon contract and announced plans to pursue NATO partnerships.