Steve Bannon says Anthropic 'had it right' in rejecting deal with the Pentagon - Business Insider

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon stated that Anthropic 'had it right' in rejecting a deal with the Pentagon. Bannon made the comments on his podcast, saying that allowing the Pentagon to operate Anthropic's frontier AI model with little guardrails would be 'too dangerous.' The Pentagon effectively blacklisted Anthropic following the failed deal.

Bannon's endorsement comes as Anthropic is engaged in a legal battle with the Trump administration over the blacklisting. The company's CEO, Dario Amodei, recently met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to negotiate terms for Washington's access to Anthropic's frontier model, Mythos. The Pentagon had sought to operate the model with minimal constraints according to Bannon's characterization.

The context includes recent warnings from Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan that Mythos poses a 'serious threat' to the global banking system. Bannon's comments represent an unusual alignment between his perspective and Anthropic's stated concerns about responsible deployment of frontier AI models. The situation highlights ongoing tensions between AI companies, military applications, and regulatory approaches.