Anthropic Hires Trump-Linked Lobbying Firm Ballard Partners Amid Pentagon Dispute

ME News reports that on April 14 (UTC+8), according to 1M AI News monitoring, Anthropic has hired Ballard Partners, Washington’s largest lobbying firm, which has close ties to the Trump administration. Lobbying disclosure filings show the engagement took effect on March 9—just four days after the Pentagon formally notified Anthropic of its supply chain risk designation. Ballard Partners disclosed its lobbying activities as pertaining to “Department of War procurement” (DOW, the Trump administration’s term for the Department of Defense). Bloomberg also revealed the core point of contention in prior negotiations: the Pentagon demanded unrestricted use of Anthropic’s tools for any lawful purpose, while Anthropic insisted on guarantees that its products would not be used for fully autonomous weapons deployment or mass surveillance of U.S. citizens. Ballard Partners is the sixth external lobbying firm Anthropic has hired since November last year, following Avenue Solutions and Navigators Global. Last month, Anthropic established its own think tank, appointing Sarah Heck as Head of Public Policy, and registered a federal Political Action Committee (PAC). Lobbying expenditure data shows Anthropic’s federal lobbying spending increased over 330% year-over-year to $3.1 million in 2025, while OpenAI’s spending rose nearly 70% to approximately $3 million. AI-related lobbying reached a record single-quarter total of $37.2 million in Q4 2025, up 38% year-over-year. (Source: BlockBeats)