Anthropic hires Trump-affiliated lobbying firm Ballard Partners; previous negotiations broke down due to the Pentagon's demand for unrestricted AI use

ME News Report, April 14 (UTC+8), according to 1M AI News monitoring, Anthropic has hired Washington’s largest lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, which has close ties to the Trump administration. The lobbying disclosure documents show the engagement took effect on March 9, just four days after the Pentagon officially notified Anthropic of supply chain risk assessments. Ballard Partners disclosed that their lobbying matter concerns “war department procurement” (DOW, i.e., Department of War, the Trump administration’s term for the Department of Defense). Bloomberg also revealed the core disagreement that led to the breakdown of negotiations: the Pentagon demanded unrestricted use of Anthropic’s tools for all legal purposes, while Anthropic required guarantees that their products would not be used for fully autonomous weapon deployment or large-scale surveillance targeting American citizens. Ballard Partners is the sixth external lobbying firm hired by Anthropic since November last year, after previously engaging Avenue Solutions and Navigators Global. Last month, Anthropic established its own think tank, appointed Sarah Heck as head of public policy, and registered a federal Political Action Committee (PAC). Lobbying expenditure data shows that Anthropic’s federal lobbying spending in 2025 increased by over 330% year-over-year to $3.1 million, with OpenAI’s growth nearly 70% to about $3 million. AI-related lobbying hit a record of $37.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2025, a 38% year-over-year increase. (Source: BlockBeats)