Continuing the tradition of tech CEOs appearing to be transparent performing their mea culpas on social media, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to Xitter Monday to say a few things about that rushed Friday deal with the Pentagon, following the collapse of a deal with Anthropic — namely that it was rushed and "sloppy."
It would appear that OpenAI got the deal that Anthropic wanted with the Department of War (DoW), with the contractual safeguards against using its technology for mass surveillance of Americans, or to guide autonomous weapons. The 11th-hour deal was struck late Friday, hours after President Trump took to Truth Social to trash Anthropic as a "Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about." (This was also hours before the Department of War went ahead and used Anthropic's AI to launch its strikes against Iran.)
But CEO Sam Altman had some amendments to the contract to share publicly on Monday, perhaps realizing what a poor PR move it was to appear to be the Trump Pentagon's willing lackey — after Anthropic appeared to maintain the moral high ground.
These amendments include further language including "the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals," and "For the avoidance of doubt, the Department understands this limitation to prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information."
Here is re-post of an internal post:
— Sam Altman (@sama) March 3, 2026
We have been working with the DoW to make some additions in our agreement to make our principles very clear.
1. We are going to amend our deal to add this language, in addition to everything else:
"• Consistent with applicable laws,…
The tweet also includes a rare moment of contrition from Altman, in which he acknowledges how bad all this looked for OpenAI, at a critical moment in global history no less.
"One thing I think I did wrong: we shouldn't have rushed to get this out on Friday," he writes. "The issues are super complex, and demand clear communication. We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy. Good learning experience for me as we face higher-stakes decisions in the future."
Altman says he is hosting an all-hands meeting to address internal concerns at the company about the deal. And he makes a point of saying that he spoke to the Pentagon and urged them not to punish or blacklist Anthropic, adding, "we hope the DoW offers them the same terms we’ve agreed to."
As Bloomberg notes, this apology from Altman comes after a couple years of heated rivalry between OpenAI and Anthropic — which was founded by former OpenAI employees who claimed to be worried about the ethics of artificial intelligence.
"Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have clashed repeatedly in the past over seemingly divergent approaches to AI development," Bloomberg writes. "Their competition intensified this year with a series of advances by Anthropic — most notably the growing popularity of its Claude Code suite, which surpassed OpenAI’s Codex in market adoption."
The apology also came after a weekend in which Claude surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded app in the Apple and Google app stores, and just a few weeks after Anthropic paid for Super Bowl ad time to throw shade at ChatGPT for adding advertising to its free chatbot.
Previously: OpenAI Makes Deal With Pentagon, Including Safeguards Anthropic Requested Before Ban
Top image: Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
