Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration's Anthropic ban
By John Ruwitch, NPR, March 26, 2026
A federal judge in San Francisco ordered a preliminary injunction against the Pentagon on Thursday that temporarily puts on ice its potentially-crippling decision to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk." The tech company and the Pentagon are in the middle of a dispute over how the military might use the company's artificial intelligence model, Claude.
Judge Rita F. Lin of the District Court for the Northern District of California also temporarily halted a directive from President Trump ordering all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic's technology.
These actions pause the government's ban until the court can decide on the merits of the underlying case.
In the order, Lin wrote that the supply chain risk designation is usually reserved for foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists, not for American companies. "These broad measures do not appear to be directed at the government's stated national security interests," Lin wrote. "If the concern is the integrity of the operational chain of command, the Department of War could just stop using Claude."
"Instead," she continued, "these measures appear designed to punish Anthropic."
