Court Filing: Pentagon Told Anthropic Sides Were 'Nearly Aligned' — One Week Before Trump Declared Relationship Over

TechCrunch·high signal

A TechCrunch investigation (March 20) revealed that Pentagon Under Secretary Emil Michael privately emailed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on March 4 saying the two sides were 'very close' on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance red lines — then one week later Trump publicly declared the relationship kaput and the Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply chain risk. A hearing before Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco is now set for March 24, 2026. The contradiction between private diplomatic alignment and public breach is now central to Anthropic's active lawsuit against the Department of Defense.