Anthropic appoints security expert for closer relationship with US defense department

Anthropic has announced the appointment of a national security expert as it seeks a closer relationship with the United States Department of Defense. The appointment comes a day after the company announced AI models designed for US national security applications.

According to Anthropic, the new appointee, Richard Fontaine, will take up the role in its long-term benefit trust. The company’s long-term benefit trust is a governance mechanism that Anthropic claims helps it promote safety over profit. The trust also has the power to elect some of the company’s board of directors.

The other members of the trust include Center for Effective Altruism CEO Zachary Robinson, Clinton Health Access Initiatives CEO Neil Buddy Shah, and Evidence Action President Kanika Bahl.

Anthropic announces the appointment of its national security expert

In the statement, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the appointment of Fontaine will ensure the trust’s ability to guide the company through the most complex decisions about artificial intelligence as it relates to security.

He also added, “I’ve long believed that ensuring democratic nations maintain leadership in responsible AI development is essential for both global security and the common good.”

Fontaine is expected to become a trustee in Anthropic but without a financial stake in the company. He previously served as a foreign policy adviser to the late Senator John McCain, also taking up a role as an adjunct professor at Georgetown, teaching security studies. He also led the Center for A New American Security, a national security think tank based in Washington, D.C, acting in the capacity of its president for more than six years.

His appointment comes after the company appointed Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings to its board.

Anthropic has been increasing its United States national security customers as it continues to seek new revenue sources. In November 2024, the company teamed up with Palantir and AWS, the cloud computing division of its major partner and investor, Amazon, to sell Anthropic’s AI to defense customers.

At the time, Anthropic’s head of sales, Kate Earle Jensen, said the company’s collaboration with Palantir and AWS would “operationalize the use of Claude” within Palantir’s platform by leveraging AWS hosting.

AI labs continue moves to land defense contracts

While Anthropic has indicated its interest in going after defense contracts, it is not the only top AI lab doing so.

OpenAI is looking to establish a close relationship with the United States Department of Defense. Last December, the company announced a partnership with Anduril, a defense startup that makes missiles, drones, and software for the United States military. Anduril co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf said OpenAI’s AI models will be used to improve systems used for air defense.

Meta also announced that it was making its Llama models available to defense partners. “We are pleased to confirm that we’re making Llama available to U.S. government agencies, including those that are working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work,” Meta wrote in a blog post in November 2024.

The company said it will partner with different agencies, including Microsoft, Oracle, and Scale AI to make sure Llama is accessible to government agencies.

Meanwhile, Google has also announced that it is refining a version of its Gemini AI capable of working within classified environments.

According to an executive of the firm, a larger percentage of the US government’s military and intelligence enterprise has shown interest in a specialized, air-gapped version of Google’s Gemini AI model. The executive also said that in private meetings with the government’s military and intelligence agencies, demos of the specialized version of Gemini have piqued the interests of their workforce.

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