OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responds to deal with Department of War

OpenAI has entered a deal with the U.S. Department of War (DOW), providing its AI tools for military use in “classified environments.” Announcing the partnership on Saturday, the ChatGPT developer claims it includes guardrails prohibiting the use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. However, contract excerpts shared by OpenAI appear to leave significant loopholes.

News of OpenAI’s deal with the DOW came just one day after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. government will no longer use tech from OpenAI rival Anthropic, including its AI model Claude. Posting about the split on Truth Social, Trump had objected to Anthropic’s insistence that the DOW abide by the company’s terms of service. 

Exactly which terms of services Trump took issue with were revealed in a statement from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Thursday. In it, he claimed that the DOW demanded Anthropic remove safeguards against use of its tech for mass surveillance in the U.S. and fully AI-controlled weapons. Amodei stated that such use may technically be lawful, however “this is only because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI.”

“[I]n a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values,” wrote Amodei. “Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do.”

OpenAI’s terms are apparently more to the Trump administration’s liking, with the company stepping in to supply the U.S. military with AI technology in Anthropic’s place. Yet despite this, OpenAI claims that its agreement with DOW not only has similar guardrails which prohibit use of its technology for mass domestic surveillance or directing autonomous weapons, but even adds a third: “No use of OpenAI technology for high-stakes automated decisions (e.g. systems such as ‘social credit’).” 

“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,” read OpenAI’s announcement. “This is all in addition to the strong existing protections in U.S. law.”

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According to OpenAI, the limitations it has imposed are more enforceable than Anthropic’s because it will only provide the DOW with its technology via the cloud, rather than installing it directly on hardware. OpenAI personnel will also be kept involved so that they can see how the DOW is using its technology. This will allegedly allow the company more oversight and control of its AI systems. 

“We don’t know why Anthropic could not reach this deal, and we hope that they and more labs will consider it,” wrote OpenAI.

However, an excerpt of the contract shared by OpenAI indicated that its technology will only be barred from use in autonomous weapons or to surveil U.S. citizens where such use is illegal. In fact, the agreement appears to lay out circumstances where OpenAI’s tech would be allowed for these purposes, such as where human control over weapons isn’t required by DOW policy or law.

“The Department of War may use the AI System for all lawful purposes, consistent with applicable law, operational requirements, and well-established safety and oversight protocols,” the contract reads, per OpenAI. “[A]ny use of AI in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems must undergo rigorous verification, validation, and testing to ensure they perform as intended in realistic environments before deployment.”

Responding to concerns in a post on LinkedIn, OpenAI head of national security partnerships Katrina Mulligan merely reiterated that its usage policies aren’t the only safeguards in place, re-emphasising its cloud deployment and involvement of its personnel. 

“[The DOW’s] position was, build the model however you want, refuse whatever requests you want, just don’t try to govern our operational decisions through usage policies,” wrote Mulligan. 

Still, doubts remain regarding the effectiveness of these ostensible safeguards, particularly considering OpenAI’s reluctance to take an ethical stand.

Sam Altman speaks on OpenAI’s deal with Department of War

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman conducted a Q&A on X in an attempt to assuage users’ concerns about the DOW deal, to little apparent success. Conceding that the deal “was definitely rushed, and the optics don’t look good,” Altman claimed that they’d hoped it would de-escalate tensions between the DOW and the AI industry.

“I think a good relationship between the government and the companies developing this technology is critical over the next couple of years,” wrote Altman. 

The deal might have brought OpenAI and the U.S. government closer together, but it seems to have simultaneously alienated ChatGPT’s civilian users.

Responding to a question about whether permitting all lawful use allows mass surveillance, Altman shared a post by U.S. Under Secretary of War Emil Michael in which he claimed that “The DoW does not spy on domestic communication of U.S. people (including via commercial collection) and to do so would be unlawful and profoundly un-American.”

Unsurprisingly, few seem inclined to take the DOW’s word for it. In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed mass surveillance of U.S. citizens conducted by the DOW’s (then called the Department of Defense) National Security Agency (NSA). This program was found to be illegal, and included people’s telephone records. Human Rights Watch also accused the then-Department of Defense of surveilling U.S. citizens without warrants in 2017. 

“The government already has broken the law and illegally surveiled [sic] US citizens,” replied X user @bolts6629. “A milquetoast statement from an undersecretary in an administration famous for lying is good enough for you?”

Altman did state that he would refuse to use OpenAI’s technology for mass domestic surveillance “because it violates the Constitution,” and expressed discomfort with the idea of an amendment that would allow such use. However, some social media users cast doubt on this claim, noting that he has gone back on other promises before.

“Other things you’ve said you wouldn’t do: overrule the OpenAI board, remove the nonprofit structure, put ads in ChatGPT,” noted @Laneless_.

Further, OpenAI’s CEO also indicated that the company is reluctant to draw ethical lines, preferring to abdicate responsibility and follow the government’s directions rather than take any sort of stand itself.

“[W]e are not elected,” wrote Altman. “We have a democratic process where we do elect our leaders. We have expertise with the technology and understand its limitations, but I think you should be terrified of a private company deciding on what is and isn’t ethical in the most important areas.”

“Following orders is not an excuse for unethical behavior,” responded @MagisterLudiX. “Either you have strong red lines or you see it as purely transactional, depending on political context.”

“AI is a tool. A hard limit on it, is a limit like any other tool has,” wrote @genericrohan. “It’s not deciding what the military can do, it is about setting a limit that the military can plan for.”

In response to the news of OpenAI and the DOW’s partnership, many ChatGPT users are reportedly cancelling their subscriptions to the AI chatbot. Several are instead turning to Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude, which has since dethroned ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple App Store.

“OpenAI just made a deal with a devil and lost this customer of 2 years,” Reddit user r/boomroom11 posted on subreddit r/ChatGPT. The post has over 26,000 upvotes at time of writing. “The company (originally non profit) that told us they existed to build AI safely for humanity is now taking Pentagon contracts. Sam Altman decided defense money was more important than every principle the company was founded on.”

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.