OpenAI shares more details about its agreement with the Pentagon

By CEO Sam Altman’s own admission, OpenAI’s deal with the Department of Defense was “definitely rushed,” and “the optics don’t look good.” After negotiations between Anthropic and the Pentagon fell through on Friday, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology after a six-month transition period , and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he was designating the AI company as a supply-chain risk. Then, OpenAI quickly announced that it had reached a deal of its own for models to be deployed in classified environments. With Anthropic saying it was drawing red lines around the use of its technology in fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance, and Altman saying OpenAI had the same red lines, there were some obvious questions: Was OpenAI being honest about its safeguards? Why was it able to reach a deal while Anthropic was not? So as OpenAI executives defended the agreement on social media, the company also published a blog post outlining its approach . In fact, the post pointed to three areas where it said OpenAI’s models cannot be used — mass domestic surveillance, autonomous weapon systems, and “high-stakes automated decisions (e.g. systems such as ‘social credit’).” The company said that in contrast to other AI companies that have “reduced or removed their safety guardrails and relied primarily on usage policies as their primary safeguards in national security deployments,” OpenAI’s agreement protects its red lines “through a more expansive, multi-layered approach.” “We retain full discretion over our safety stack, we deploy via cloud, cleared OpenAI personnel are in the loop, and we have strong contractual protections,” the blog said. “This is all in addition to the strong existing protections in U.S. law.” Techcrunch event Disrupt 2026: The tech ecosystem, all in one room Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and ...