Inside Sam Altman's Plan To Benefit From The Hegseth-Anthropic Feud

In a memo to OpenAI staff, Altman said he’s exploring a deal with the Department of War that would put their models into classified environments, while publicly backing the same red lines that put Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on a collision course with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The memo dropped the same day OpenAI closed a record $110 billion funding round backed by SoftBank, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Amazon (NYSE:AMZN).

The Pentagon Anthropic Feud

Anthropic CEO Amodei has until 5:01 p.m. today to agree to the Pentagon’s demand that Claude be used for “all lawful purposes” or face being designated a “supply chain risk.”

Anthropic’s position is that it will work with the military but it won’t allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons.

Under Secretary of War Emil Michael called Amodei “a liar” with a “God-complex.”

He also argued on X that mass surveillance is already illegal under the Fourth Amendment and that the department “won’t have any big tech company decide Americans’ civil liberties.”

Amodei fired back Thursday night: “These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”

The Polymarket contract “Will Pete Hegseth ban Claude by March 31?” is currently at 25%. If the Pentagon can’t find a compliant replacement, the ban threat loses teeth.

OpenAI’s Position

Altman framed the standoff as a question of power, not ethics: “We believe this dispute isn’t about how AI will be used, but about control. A private U.S. company cannot be more powerful than the democratically-elected US government.”

However, Altman has reasons beyond altruism.

ChatGPT’s app market share has been falling, and Polymarket gives OpenAI just a 13% chance of holding the top-ranked AI model by June, behind Anthropic at 37% and Google at 34%.

The $500 billion Stargate data center venture has stalled, and OpenAI doesn’t expect to be cash-flow positive until 2029, despite targeting a late-2026 IPO. A Pentagon classified-network contract is exactly the kind of marquee deal that dresses up an S-1.

Polymarket traders currently price an OpenAI IPO in 2026 at just 41%, down from 53% early in February.

Image: Shutterstock