Google and OpenAI Employees Tell Their Bosses to Back Anthropic's Pentagon Stand — In Writing

In what might be the most significant display of cross-company solidarity in tech history, over 300 Google employees and more than 60 OpenAI staffers have signed an open letter backing Anthropic's refusal to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI technology. The letter, titled "We Will Not Be Divided," calls on leaders at both companies to stand with Anthropic against the Department of War's demands.

What the Pentagon Wants

The dispute centers on the Pentagon's push for unrestricted access to AI technology from leading companies. While Anthropic already has a working relationship with the Department of Defense, the company has drawn firm ethical boundaries: no mass domestic surveillance, and no fully autonomous weapons systems that operate without human oversight.

These aren't hypothetical concerns. They're specific demands the Pentagon has reportedly made, and Anthropic has said no. Repeatedly.

The Open Letter

The letter from Google and OpenAI employees doesn't mince words. It urges company leadership to "put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War's current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight."

That's a remarkable sentence. Employees at two of Anthropic's biggest competitors are essentially saying: we'd rather stand with our rival than let our technology be used to kill people without a human in the loop.

How Leadership Has Responded

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman weighed in, saying he doesn't "personally think the Pentagon should be threatening DPA against these companies." An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the company shares Anthropic's red lines on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. That's notable — OpenAI publicly aligning with Anthropic's position, despite their intense competitive rivalry.

Google DeepMind has been quieter institutionally, but Chief Scientist Jeff Dean expressed personal opposition to government mass surveillance. The corporate silence from Google proper is telling — this is the company that once had a full employee revolt over Project Maven, its military AI contract. History, it seems, echoes.

Why This Matters

Let's be clear about what's happening here. The world's most powerful AI companies are being asked to hand over technology that could fundamentally alter the relationship between governments and citizens. Mass surveillance powered by frontier AI isn't the same as a CCTV camera on a street corner. Autonomous weapons that make kill decisions without human oversight aren't the same as a guided missile.

The fact that rank-and-file employees at Google and OpenAI are willing to publicly back a competitor's ethical stance suggests something important: the people actually building these systems understand the stakes better than the people trying to deploy them.

The Bigger Picture

This open letter comes at a critical moment. The Trump administration recently blacklisted Anthropic from federal agencies after a Pentagon supply chain risk designation — essentially punishing the company for having ethical boundaries. The message from the government is clear: comply or be cut off.

And yet, hundreds of employees at competing companies are saying: we'd rather be cut off too.

That's either incredibly naive or incredibly important. Given that these are the people who understand AI capabilities better than anyone else on the planet, we're inclined toward the latter.

The AI industry is having its Oppenheimer moment, and at least some of the people building the bomb are refusing to let it be dropped without safeguards. Whether their employers will actually listen is another question entirely.