According to Axios, citing sources close to the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) is actively using Anthropic ‘s latest model, Claude Mythos. There would be nothing unusual about this, were it not for the fact that the same administration has officially declared Anthropic to be a ‘supply chain risk’ company, which should theoretically close its doors to government contracts.
This rupture within the US security apparatus is indicative of a wider problem: the tension between the ethics of AI developers and the military ambitions of the state. Anthropic was blacklisted not because of technical loopholes or links to foreign intelligence, but as a result of an ideological clash. The company refused to allow the Pentagon to use its models for mass surveillance of citizens and the development of autonomous combat systems. In response, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth gave the company a risk label, hitherto reserved for entities linked to authoritarian regimes.
For the technology business, this situation is a lesson in pragmatism. The NSA, whose statutory mandate is to crack ciphers and go on the offensive in cyberspace, has apparently decided that Claude Mythos is too powerful a tool to abandon. The model has shown remarkable effectiveness in identifying zero-day bugs and finding backdoors in foreign software. In the face of such unique capabilities, the Pentagon’s political pronouncements go down the drain.
The current state of affairs is a classic bureaucratic farce with serious market implications. While the Pentagon is publicly warning against Anthropic, the intelligence services are signing new contracts with the company, arguing for national security needs. This sets a dangerous precedent in which security labels are used as a leverage tool in contract negotiations rather than as a real threat assessment.
The technical value of AI is becoming stronger than political arbitration. Anthropic is currently fighting to regain its good name through legal means, but it is the actual demand from agencies such as the NSA that may prove to be their most effective line of defence.
