Alarm caused by posts of Alex Karp, tech firm’s CEO, championing US military dominance and of AI weapons
The US spy tech company Palantir published a manifesto extolling the benefits of American power and implying some cultures are inferior to others – in what MPs have called “a parody of a RoboCop film” and “the ramblings of a supervillain”.
“Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive,” wrote Palantir in a 22-point post on X over the weekend, which also called for an end to the “postwar neutering” of Germany and Japan.
The post exhorted the US to reinstate a military draft, saying that “free and democratic societies” need “hard power” in order to prevail.
It also predicted a future dominated by autonomous weapons: “The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.”
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It led to criticism from several MPs, who said that it raised yet more questions about the UK’s portfolio of contracts with the company. Palantir has built up more than £500m in contracts in Britain, including a £330m contract with the NHS, as well as deals with the police and Ministry of Defence. These deals have come in for increasing criticism.
“Palantir’s manifesto, which embraces AI state surveillance of citizens along with national service in the USA, is either a parody of a RoboCop film, or a disturbing narcissistic rant from an arrogant organisation,” said Martin Wrigley, a Liberal Democrat MP who is a member of the commons science and technology select committee.
“Either way it shows that the company’s ethos is entirely unsuited to working on UK government projects involving citizens’ most sensitive private data.”
Tony Blair’s think tank and consulting firm is proving to be highly influential with Labour in government | (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Exclusive: Tech firms such as TBI are embedding staff in government, sparking fears AI policy is being ‘outsourced’
The Tony Blair Institute and the Ellison Institute of Technology sent senior staff members to work in the government department tasked with developing AI policy, openDemocracy can reveal.
UK tech firm Faculty, which has links to the TBI, also embedded a member of staff in the Department of Science, Information and Technology (DSIT).
In one case, the TBI hired a senior civil servant tasked with leading the government’s AI programme, then seconded them straight back to their old job in the department – a potential loophole in rules intended to stop former civil servants from using their connections to lobby old colleagues.
In another, a different TBI staffer wrote on LinkedIn that he had played a key role in drafting the government’s flagship AI Opportunities Action Plan, its far-reaching blueprint for AI policy, during an 11-month secondment to DSIT.
The government is not required to declare secondments, meaning there is no public record of the companies that gain significant access and influence through these arrangements – nor the policies their secondees advocate for.
But openDemocracy has found that arms firms Thales and Qinetiq, tech consultancy Capgemini, and pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca have also sent staff members to work in DSIT.
Responding to our findings, Kamila Kingstone, programme lead at said: “When individuals with close ties to vested commercial interests are embedded at the heart of policymaking, it creates real risks of conflicts of interest. It enables Big Tech to capture and help set the very rules that should regulate it.
“At a minimum, the government should publish annually a list of who has been brought in on secondment, their conflicts of interest, and any mitigations in place. At a time when public trust in politics is at rock bottom, the government should be going the extra mile to be sure it is transparent about who is influencing policy behind the scenes”
Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward told openDemocracy: “Starmer’s Labour Party has no values or vision, so it has outsourced its policy development process to corporate interests. Unethical companies have funnelled dirty money through ‘think tanks’ and agencies to shape the government’s positions in favour of Big Tech.”
A government spokesperson told openDemocracy: “We make no apologies for bringing cutting-edge expertise from UK academia and industry into the heart of Government.”
‘Smooth transition’
Dr Laura Gilbert left her position as the director of the UK government’s Incubator for Artificial Intelligence programme in December 2024, ending a four-year career in the heart of government.
Less than four weeks later, she was back in the Department of Science, Information and Technology – the department tasked not only with developing the regulation of AI tech in the wider economy but also with its rollout across government.
This time, though, Gilbert was not on the civil service payroll, but working for the Tony Blair Institute, a consultancy founded by the former Labour prime minister to advise governments on various policy areas – particularly tech – and the Ellison Institute of Technology, an organisation founded by US billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, reportedly the world’s second-richest man.
The two firms had recruited her to run their joint AI for Government project before immediately seconding her back to her old office.
Gilbert’s secondment suggests a loophole in the business appointment rules, which state that senior civil servants leaving government to work in the private sector should “not become personally involved in lobbying the UK government on behalf of your new employer and/or its clients” for two years.
But there is no rule preventing their new employers from sending them straight back to work in government, where they can directly influence policy.
Gilbert told openDemocracy she was sent back to the department “to support the smooth transition of my dedicated and talented technical AI team into DSIT… working with my (interim) replacement to hand over for a short period via a secondment from the Ellison Institute”.
The TBI said Gilbert had “agreed to help oversee the transfer of her team into DSIT”, while the Ellison Institute did not respond to a request for comment.
After four months, Gilbert left DSIT again to take up her current role as head of AI in the TBI. But openDemocracy has uncovered that her secondment is part of a broader pattern of tech firms sending staff to shape Labour’s tech policy – a pattern that began when the party was still seen as the government-in-waiting.
In 2023, the Tony Blair Institute paid for Labour’s shadow tech secretary, Peter Kyle, to travel to Brussels to attend its programme on science and tech policy. The following year, he visited the US on a trip paid for by Lord Sainsbury, a Labour donor, and consulting firm Hakluyt & Company, which has interests in AI through an investment fund. There, Kyle met with tech giants, including Ellison’s Oracle.
Kyle also benefited from tech companies seconding staff to him. During the 2024 election campaign, Faculty, a company that provides software and consultancy on AI, sent a staff member to support his work.
While Labour reported that the staffer was in Kyle’s office on one day a week for two months, it valued the arrangement – a donation-in-kind – at £36,000. Based on a standard seven or eight-hour working day, this suggests their hourly salary was around £600.
Tech consulting firm Public Digital also seconded a senior member of staff to work for Kyle before the election. Emily Middleton, the staffer in question, was later brought into DSIT as a senior civil servant on a salary of between £125,000 and £208,000 after Kyle was appointed to lead it. She had previously been seconded to Labour Together.
In October 2024, Faculty sent a mid-level staffer to Kyle’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology on a four-month secondment. It is not clear whether this was the same person who had been seconded to Kyle’s office earlier in the year.
Faculty has grown its government business since Labour took office, including winning its two largest ever public contracts: a £6m deal with the Department for Education and another worth £4.5m with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The government declined to answer openDemocracy’s questions on the nature of the Faculty staffer’s work, while the firm did not respond to our request for comment.
The following month, in November 2024, the Tony Blair Institute paid for its senior policy adviser, Tom Westgarth, to be installed in DSIT.
Westgarth remained in the department for 11 months, with his LinkedIn page suggesting he held significant influence over public AI policy. It says he advised the government “on delivering the AI [Opportunities] Action Plan” and provided “strategic steer across a range of AI Action Plan priorities”.
“Labour are currently doing everything they possibly can to bring predatory Big Tech into the UK economy, on Big Tech’s terms,” said Jim Killock, the executive director at Open Rights Group. “They have collapsed competition regulation, shifted data protection to favour business needs over personal data, and promised Big Tech all the help they need to establish themselves at every level of government.
“Adding in senior officials who know how to do Big Tech’s bidding is just one more sign that the UK is being asset-stripped and locked into a future of permanent rent extraction by Big Tech. There is an alternative – a strategy for digital sovereignty that prioritises UK open source. We won’t get that by asking staff from the TBI and Ellison Institute to help write UK tech policy.”
A government spokesperson said: “We make no apologies for bringing cutting-edge expertise from UK academia and industry into the heart of government. We are determined to drive momentum on policies supporting some of the most important research and technologies of the future, by drawing on Britain’s wealth of science and tech expertise, and our secondment schemes are a key part of this.
“This government is a champion for our science and technology sectors across the board – not individual companies. The usual propriety and ethics rules apply for all of our secondees.”
The TBI said: “Tom Westgarth’s secondment is public knowledge, he announced it at the time.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Starmer said it here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefiting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity.
Yanis Varoufakis: ‘My ridiculous prosecution must be seen within the wider, west-wide surge of an insidious new form of fascism.’ Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Greek leftwing intellectual and former minister says his indictment is indicative of far-right turn in western politics
Yanis Varoufakis, the leftwing firebrand who briefly served as Greece’s finance minister, has criticised his “ridiculous prosecution” for allegedly promoting the use of recreational drugs after his public admission that he once took an ecstasy pill almost 40 years ago.
The 64-year-old, who reminisced about the experience on a podcast, was charged on Wednesday with “inciting others in the illegal use of narcotics”. If convicted he faces a prison term of at least six months and up to €50,000 (£44,000) in fines. A court hearing has been scheduled for December.
On Friday, Varoufakis described the indictment as indicative of the far-right turn in politics across the west.
“My ridiculous prosecution must be seen within the wider, west-wide surge of an insidious new form of fascism,” he wrote on X, highlighting what he claimed was the appointment of “neo-fascists” to top posts in the centre-right Greek government.
“In this context, I am honoured by their determination to persecute me – as it grants me the privilege of calling upon people of good conscience, from around the world, to stand together, to oppose them.”
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks alongside President Donald Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on December 22, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
“Demanding security guardrails for how AI is used by the Department of Defense isn’t radical—it’s protecting the constitutional rights of the American people,” said New Jersey’s Democratic governor.
US President Donald Trump “is throwing this tantrum and calling Anthropic ‘radical left’ because they refuse to have their AI be used for illegal mass surveillance and murder. That’s literally it.”
That’s how progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski described Trump’s Friday social mediapost “directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use” of the artificial intelligence firm’s technology—including its chatbot Claude.
As Kulinski’s podcast co-host and wife Krystal Ball summarized, “According to the president, objecting to autonomous killer robots and mass surveillance is ‘radical left.’”
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until 5:01 pm Eastern time Friday to agree to let the Pentagon use the company’s AI tech however it wants. He threatened to declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its current contract, or invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force the company to tailor the product to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) needs.
After the DOD reportedly sent Anthropic its “best and final” offer Wednesday night, the company’s CEO, Dario Amodei, published a blog post explaining that “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” and reiterated opposition to enabling autonomous weapons or surveillance of US citizens.
While Anthropic employees, other tech experts, and critics of the current administration praised Amodei for “standing on principle” and choosing “war with the Department of War”—the president’s preferred name for the Pentagon—Trump predictably lashed out at the company on his Truth Social platform.
This is because Anthropic said:
– We don't want our technology changed to permit for mass surveillance of American citizens – We don't want our technology changed to permit the use in fully autonomous lethal weapons
“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military,” Trump wrote Friday afternoon.
“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution,” he continued. “Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.”
Directing agencies to stop using Anthropic’s tech, Trump added:
We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels. Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.
WE will decide the fate of our Country—NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Amodei had notably written in his blog post that “our strong preference is to continue to serve the department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions.”
While Trump’s order preceded Hegseth’s initial deadline, the defense secretary publicly weighed in at 5:14 pm, writing on Elon Musk’s social media network X that “this week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States government or the Pentagon.”
Hegseth described the company’s terms of service as “defective altruism,” and reiterated the Pentagon’s position that “the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the republic.”
Trump gave the administration a way to declare victory and move on with his "We don't like Anthropic, they're fired."
Hegseth, who is much dumber, instead commits to a full-throated attempt to destroy the company by announcing that no vendor who works with the US military may do… https://t.co/qO3aufVmcf
The Pentagon chief also officially directed the DOD to designate the company a supply chain risk to national security, meaning that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
“Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service,” Hegseth added. “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.”
The New York Timesnoted that “the Pentagon is ready to move forward with Grok, produced by Elon Musk’s xAI, on its classified system. But Grok is considered by current and former government officials to be an inferior product. And switching AI software would take time and almost certainly cause disruption.”
While Anthropic hasn’t publicly responded to Trump or Hegseth, critics, including congressional Democrats, have continued to praise the company and blast the administration for how they’ve each handled the conflict this week.
“Anthropic objected in part to the Department of Defense using its AI technology to engage in domestic mass surveillance. Do you agree that’s a radical left, woke position?” asked Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). “That’s actually the constitutional position, one that should be embraced by Americans regardless of party.”
Is the Trump administration punishing Anthropic because it’s refusing to help mass surveil American communities or build killer robots?
The American people deserve to know what Trump officials are planning at the Pentagon.
Replying to Trump’s post specifically, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill similarly said: “Yet another alarming attack by the president on a private company defending its principles. Standing up against mass surveillance and demanding security guardrails for how AI is used by the Department of Defense isn’t radical—it’s protecting the constitutional rights of the American people.”
Describing himself as “one of Congress’ most vocal proponents for the modernization” of DOD and US intelligence community (IC) missions with transformative technology, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chair Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement that “the president’s directive to halt the use of a leading American AI company across the federal government, combined with inflammatory rhetoric attacking that company, raises serious concerns about whether national security decisions are being driven by careful analysis or political considerations.”
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s efforts to intimidate and disparage a leading American company—potentially as the pretext to steer contracts to a preferred vendor whose model a number of federal agencies have already identified as a reliability, safety, and security threat—pose an enormous risk to US defense readiness and the willingness of the US private sector and academia to work with the IC and DOD, consistent with their own values and legal ethics,” he continued.
“Indeed,” he added, “Secretary Hegseth’s loud insistence on the sufficiency of an ‘all lawful purposes’ standard provides cold comfort against the backdrop of Pentagon leadership that has routinely sidelined career military attorneys and challenged longstanding norms and rules regarding lethal force.”
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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a visit to Sierra Space in Louisville, Colorado on February 23, 2026. (Photo by Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the company that owns the AI assistant Claude would be punished unless it drops all ethical guidelines.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to punish the artificial intelligence company Anthropic if it doesn’t let the Pentagon use its technology however it wants—apparently even to create autonomous killer drones or conduct surveillance of Americans.
Anthropic’s powerful AI model, Claude, is currently the only one permitted to handle classified military data, and the company was awarded a $200 million contract last year to develop AI capabilities for the Department of Defense to use alongside other AI firms.
However, the company’s usage policy prohibits its use for mass surveillance and for the development of autonomous weapons—such as drones that attack targets without a human operator.
These limitations have infuriated the Defense Department leadership. On Tuesday, Hegseth called Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, to a meeting at the Pentagon, where he demanded “unfettered” access to Claude without any guardrails.
This goal was outlined last month in the department’s “AI Strategy” memo, which called for the US to adopt an “AI-first warfighting force” and for companies to allow their technology to be deployed for “any lawful use,” free from ethical safeguards.
According to a senior defense official who spoke to Axios, Hegseth issued an ultimatum to Amodei on Tuesday: If he does not grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of Anthropic’s technology by 5:01 pm on Friday, the department would take measures to coerce the company.
It would either declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its contract, or it would invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force the company to tailor the product to the military’s needs.
While it would not be an unusual step for the Pentagon to cut ties with Anthropic, threats to declare it a supply chain risk have been described as extraordinary.
Jessica Tillipman, the associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University, who specializes in AI governance, wrote on social media that the threat of “declaring Anthropic a supply chain risk is deeply problematic,” as it’s “generally something we reserve for products that create security risks, and using it in this way undermines its purpose.”
As Elizabeth Nolan Brown wrote on Wednesday for Reason, it “would mean anyone who wants to work with the US military in any capacity must sever ties with the AI company,” which could deal a major blow to the business.
Anthropic's CEO Explains His Refusal to Back Down to the Pentagon.
Amodei explained his deep concerns over "autonomous drone swarms" and mass surveillance.
He pointed out a crucial reality: our military's constitutional protections rely entirely on human soldiers having the… pic.twitter.com/IsmbKecwsB
Last month, Amodei published an essay about how “AI-enabled autocracies” could use the technology to surveil and repress their citizens and wage war on less developed countries:
A swarm of millions or billions of fully automated armed drones, locally controlled by powerful AI and strategically coordinated across the world by an even more powerful AI, could be an unbeatable army, capable of both defeating any military in the world and suppressing dissent within a country by following around every citizen…
A powerful AI looking across billions of conversations from millions of people could gauge public sentiment, detect pockets of disloyalty forming, and stamp them out before they grow. This could lead to the imposition of a true panopticon on a scale that we don’t see today.
Amodei reportedly resisted Hegseth’s demands to lift restrictions at Tuesday’s meeting, refusing to budge on the two key issues of mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Following reports of the meeting, the company has said it still wants to work with the government while also ensuring its models are used in line with what they could “reliably and responsibly do.”
A senior Pentagon spokesperson said the military must be free to use the technology how it sees fit. According to the Associated Press, the official argued that “the Pentagon has only issued lawful orders and stressed that using Anthropic’s tools legally would be the military’s responsibility.”
Shot: Pentagon demanding Anthropic drop insistence that its AI model not fire weapons without some form of human sign off
The question of whether the Pentagon has issued only “lawful” orders is in dispute—in fact, the Pentagon is fighting to cut the retirement pay of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired Navy captain, after he made a video in November reminding active duty troops that they have a duty not to obey illegal orders.
That video was made in response to reports that Hegseth had given orders to bomb the survivors of one of the administration’s boat strikes in the Caribbean—an act described as a potential “war crime” amid a broader campaign that legal experts have said is illegal under both US and international law.
The military also reportedly used Claude as part of another legally questionable act last month: the operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which involved bombing across Caracas and killed at least 83 people. It is not clear how the model was used during the attack.
While the Pentagon has not specified which restricted activities it wishes to pursue using Anthropic’s technology, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said that with his demands, Hegseth was essentially telling the company, “Let us use your AI for mass surveillance, or we’ll pull your contract.”
Under President Donald Trump, Gallego added, “corporations are punished for refusing to spy on American citizens.”
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