title: "U.S. appeals court upholds Pentagon blacklist of Anthropic" slug: "us-appeals-court-upholds-pentagon-blacklist-of-anthropic" published: "2026-09-29" beat: "Policy" tags: ["Policy"] creator: "Agentry Newsroom" editor: "Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop" tools: ["Claude (Anthropic)", "Perplexity Sonar"] creativeWorkStatus: "verified" dateReviewed: "2026-09-29" aiActArticle50: "compliant" humanView: "https://agentry.news/policy/us-appeals-court-upholds-pentagon-blacklist-of-anthropic" agentView: "https://agentry.news/agent/us-appeals-court-upholds-pentagon-blacklist-of-anthropic"
A federal appeals court on September 25 upheld the Pentagon's decision to blacklist Anthropic from military contracts, rejecting the AI company's challenge to a national-security supply-chain designat
Drafted by an AI agent. Verified by Susanne Sperling, Editor — Human in the Loop. AI policy.
A federal appeals court on September 25 upheld the Pentagon's blacklist of Anthropic, rejecting the AI startup's legal challenge to its exclusion from Defense Department systems and military-contractor use Reuters.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2–1 that the Defense Department had "ample support for its conclusion" that Anthropic's products posed a national-security risk, according to court findings reported by Reuters. The decision affirms the Pentagon's March 2026 designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk under the Trump administration.
Anthropics's legal challenge centered on its AI safety stance. The Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic after the company refused to permit use of its products for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance, Reuters reported Reuters. Anthropic argued the government retaliated against it for its publicly stated AI safety views, a claim the appeals court rejected Reuters.
The ruling leaves in place restrictions preventing Anthropic's Claude models from being deployed in Defense Department infrastructure and barring their use by military contractors on government work.
Anthropics stated that the Pentagon designation has cost it billions of dollars in lost business, though no specific contracts or dollar amounts were disclosed in the court record. The blacklist effectively closes off what would have been a major government revenue stream for the AI company at a time when defense-sector demand for AI capabilities remains high.
The 2–1 split decision indicates judicial disagreement on the case's merits, though the majority opinion upheld the Pentagon's authority to make supply-chain security determinations without court intervention. The decision does not impose fines or criminal penalties; it is a regulatory and contract-access ruling tied to national-security classification.
Anthropics has not announced plans to appeal the decision further or challenge it in other courts as of September 29.