OpenAI is happy to sell their device to the gov’t to blow things up with, Anthropic tried to tell the gov’t to pound sand, no blowing things up for you.
To be clear, Anthropic was completely okay with their tech being used in war, including current conflicts. They just wanted a human making some decisions. The military didn’t want a vendor giving them restrictions on how to operate a tool, and since Anthropic’s restrictions could be a problem anywhere they appear among other military vendors as well, the government used the supply chain risk designation to say “this can’t be anywhere in our tools”.
We don't have the actual contracts publicly. So I bet it has terms that let the government do what it wants ultimately by naming exceptions. That way OpenAI can claim it has some controls in place while the military has the freedom it needs practically.
I'm referring to the contract between Anthropic and the DoD from July 2025 in which both parties agreed to Anthropic's acceptable user policies which then later were seen as unacceptable despite the same admin having signed them.