> completely understandable decision from a neutral third party PoV.

Except it's not, really. If Anthropic/Claude doesn't mean the DoD's need, they can and should just put out an RFP for other LLM providers. I'm sure there's plenty of others that'd happily forgo their morals for that sweet government contract money.

No US company has to provide services to the DoD or any other branch of government. It's not "veto power" it's being selective of who you do business with, which is 100% legal.

Then you go to another supplier. But any company with proper counsel will tell them the same thing: don't break the law, which is exactly what they're trying to coerce Anthropic into doing. DoD requests do not supersede the law.

Not unless they're the sole supplier of the technology. They're saying, if you want to do this kind of thing - not with our product, but you can get it elsewhere.

No, you are the one lying trying to get political gotchas here. There is no "trying to exert veto power" absolutely anywhere, Anthropic's terms were laid out in the contract the Pentagon signed, which they want to forcibly amend. If they didn't like the terms, they didn't need to sign the contract.

Or worse: train the AI to make decisions that align with the view of Anthropic management and not the elected government. Workout telling anyone.

I’d agree it is a serious risk.