> If Trump can do this to Anthropic, a Dem President will do it to xAI. We have no idea where the contagion stops.

Will the next Democratic President do it to xAI? On what grounds?

The Biden admin negotiated a contract with a supplier with terms which are – to the best of my knowledge – rather unprecedented – do Pentagon contracts normally have terms like this, restricting the government's use of the supplied good or service? Do missile or plane contracts with Boeing or Lockheed Martin contain restrictions on what kind of operations that hardware will be used in? I don't think that's the norm. So the next administration tears up a contract made by the previous admin with unusual terms – nothing unexpected about that. The "hardball" of declaring them a "supply chain risk" is escalating this dispute to a never-before-seen level, but the underlying action of cancelling the contract isn't. I honestly suspect the "supply chain risk" aspect will be suspended by the courts, and/or heavily watered down in the implementation; but the act of cancelling the contract in itself seems legally airtight.

Next Democratic administration inherits a contract with xAI (and quite possibly OpenAI and/or Google too) – with presumably standard terms. I can totally understand the political desire for vengeance. But what's the actual legal justification for it? Facially, the current administration has a politically neutral justification for what they are doing, even if some suspect there is some deeper political motivation. Will the next Democratic administration have such a facial justification for doing the same to xAI?

Plus, Democrats always sell themselves on "we obey norms". They have the structural disadvantage that either they keep their word on that, and can't do the same things back, or they break their word, and risk losing the people who supported them based on that word.