The White House is table-reading a draft executive order this week that would let civilian agencies use Anthropic's models, reversing — without naming — the February 27 Trump order that ordered a governmentwide phaseout of the company. [1] Axios broke the drafting on April 29; Nextgov confirmed the carveout architecture the same week. [2][3] The mechanism is narrow on paper and broad in effect. The Pentagon's "supply-chain risk" designation, issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in late February after Anthropic refused to drop its restrictions on autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, would remain in force for the Department of War. Every other federal agency would be allowed to procure Anthropic's models, including Mythos, through ordinary acquisition channels. [1]

The order is the second beat in a sequence that began on April 17, when White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in Washington. [4] Both sides described the meeting as productive. The agenda, per multiple reports, was cybersecurity, AI race posture, and how to route civilian access without forcing Hegseth to retract. [4][5] Asked about the meeting two days later, Trump told reporters "Who?" — a response that has since been read either as forgetfulness or as deliberate distance. [5]

The February 27 EO that the new draft unwinds was itself unusual. It cited a private commercial dispute — Anthropic's refusal to grant the Pentagon "unfettered access" to its models for "all lawful purposes" — as the basis for governmentwide procurement exclusion, a classification previously reserved for companies tied to foreign adversaries. [1] A federal judge in San Francisco subsequently blocked the Pentagon's underlying supply-chain-risk designation, finding officials had "likely violated the law and retaliated against the firm for speaking publicly about how it wanted its technology to be used." [6]

The civilian carveout is the administration's response to a problem the February order created. Federal civilian use of Anthropic predates the dispute. Treasury, Commerce, GSA, and several intelligence-adjacent civilian agencies were running pilots when the phaseout landed. [3] The phaseout collapsed those programs and forced the agencies to begin migration to OpenAI and Google models on six-month timelines. The new draft, if signed, would halt those migrations and re-authorize procurement under Federal Acquisition Regulation rules. [1][3]

What it does not do is restore Pentagon access. Hegseth's "supply-chain risk" designation was issued under separate authority — a Defense Production Act provision that the White House cannot override by EO without admitting the underlying designation was wrong. The drafting reflects that constraint. The order separates Pentagon access (kept restricted) from civilian access (restored), letting the administration claim both that Hegseth was right about national-security risk and that civilian agencies need the company's models. The contradiction is the policy. [1][3]

Anthropic, for its part, has filed lawsuits to overturn the national-security designations and is litigating in parallel. [7] The company's Mythos model, released February, anchors its government roadmap; OpenAI's federal contract pipeline expanded during the Anthropic phaseout, and Anthropic's executives have privately told investors that civilian access is existential.

Reading the table-read sequence as Pentagon defeat is the X frame. Reading it as détente is the White House frame. Both miss the structural fact: the EO sets a precedent that the President can blacklist a company for refusing a Pentagon ask, then quietly reinstate it for everything that is not the Pentagon, without retracting the original designation. The next company to refuse the next ask reads this sequence and does the math. The civilian carveout is not just policy — it is a manual for how to lose a government fight without losing the government.

The table-read is expected this week. The signing is expected later in May. The administration has not committed to a date.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco