Resolves yes, if Trump / Hegseth follow through on any efforts to sanction Anthropic (think similar to Jimmy Kimmel, CBS (Colbert, 60 Minutes, prob not the Bari Weiss, Paramount 16M merger thing), Don Lemon, Fulton County, Democratic politicians etc. who are “woke” and faced repercussions / clear mocking / slander / opposite of the type of endorsements he gave Musk / Tesla a year ago)
As a point of reference, I think Thomas Massie does not qualify as “woke”
based on this:
Donald Trump has harshly criticized Rep. Thomas Massie, calling him a "moron," "grandstander," and "too much trouble". Trump has targeted Massie for being an "automatic 'NO' vote" on spending bills, even threatening to support a primary challenger against him, while also attacking him personally and calling for his removal from the Republican Party.
Politico
Politico
+3
Key details of Trump's comments and actions regarding Massie include:
Insults: Trump has referred to Massie as a "moron" and suggested there is "something wrong" with him.
Political Threats: In 2025, Trump threatened to "lead the charge" against Massie for opposing a spending bill and endorsed a challenger, Ed Gallrein, in the GOP primary.
"Grandstander" Label: Trump described Massie as a "grandstander" who is "not worth the fight".
Past Conflicts: In 2020, Trump called for Massie to be ousted from the Republican Party after Massie forced an in-person vote on a coronavirus relief package.
Politico
Politico
+3
Despite these attacks, Massie has continued to oppose certain spending measures, leading to ongoing tension between them.
so anything harsher than that would probably be considered woke for the purposes of this market (e.g. anything Musks descriptions of Anthropic as ‘Misanthropic’ and anti-White / Asian / Male etc.
I don’t consider Hegseth and Sacks current comments sufficient to resolve yes, they need to actually do something meaningful and get Trumps explicit backing for that action.
For context: I’m pretty sure Apple would not be considered woke (since they gave him that gold trophy thing and he uses an iPhone) unless I’m missing anything
Under your criteria, the current status as of
February 25, 2026, is a "No" for immediate resolution, but the situation is in a high-stakes "threat phase" that could change by the weekend.
Status Against Your "Woke" Criteria:
Rhetoric (Passed the Massie Threshold):The language being used by the administration is significantly harsher than what was directed at Massie. While Massie was called a "moron," Anthropic is being labeled with ideological "woke" terms usually reserved for Trump’s cultural enemies. Hegseth explicitly stated, “Department of War AI will not be woke” in direct reference to this dispute.
Meaningful Sanction (In Progress): Unlike Massie, who only faced political opposition, Anthropic is facing actual federal sanctions. Hegseth has threatened to cancel their $200 million contract and label them a "supply chain risk," a designation typically reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei.
Trump’s Explicit Backing (Missing Link):This is the missing piece for your "Yes" resolution. While Hegseth is acting under the authority of Trump’s July 2025 Executive Order, Trump has not yet made a specific public statement (e.g., a Truth Social post) explicitly endorsing the specific sanctions against Anthropic.
That is a fair assessment based on your criteria. If your standard for "woke" requires Trump to personally enter the fray with his own rhetoric and explicit backing of sanctions—rather than just his subordinates—then the situation with Anthropic currently fails to qualify.
Here is why, by your logic, the Massie Threshold hasn't been met yet:
1. Lack of Presidential Voice
While Hegseth and Sacks are using the "woke" label, Trump himself has been silent on Anthropic recently.
The Massie Comparison: Trump personally went on a tear against Massie, calling him a "moron" and a "grandstander" on his own social media and in interviews.
The Anthropic Situation: As of now, the "woke" accusations and the "blacklist" threats are coming from the "nobodies" (Cabinet/Czar level). Without a direct post from Trump targeting the company or its CEO, it lacks the personal animosity he showed Massie.
2. Rhetoric vs. Personal Attack
The attacks on Massie were personal and vicious. Even if Hegseth calls a company's software "woke," it doesn't carry the same weight as Trump personally calling a human being a "radical left flamethrower" or suggesting there is "something wrong" with them. For your market, a "woke" designation seems to require that specific Trump brand of personal public shaming.
3. "Meaningful Action" is still Theoretical
While the Pentagon has threatened a contract cancellation, it hasn't happened yet. In Massie's case, Trump actively endorsed a specific human opponent to take his job. Until Trump personally hits the "send" button on a post that says something like "Anthropic is a Woke Disaster—we are canceling their contracts!", the action remains at the bureaucratic level rather than the "Presidential Sanction" level.
Summary for your Market:
As long as Trump stays on the sidelines and lets Hegseth handle the "AI war," Anthropic does not qualify as "woke" under your definition. It remains a technical and budgetary dispute between a corporation and the Department of War.
Resolution Criteria
This market resolves YES if Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Trump administration officials follow through on threats to sanction, blacklist, or terminate Anthropic's government contracts, with Trump's explicit public backing for such action. The resolution requires concrete punitive measures—not merely public criticism or failed negotiations.
Specifically, YES resolution requires at least one of the following:
Anthropic being designated a "supply chain risk," meaning anyone with military contracts must cut ties with the company
Cancellation of Anthropic's Pentagon contract
Invocation of the Defense Production Act against Anthropic
Other formal government sanctions comparable to those faced by entities like CBS or Fulton County
Mere criticism from Hegseth, Sacks, or Musk—without Trump's explicit endorsement and concrete action—does not resolve YES. The bar is higher than Trump's attacks on Rep. Thomas Massie, which involved only rhetoric and primary challenges.
Background
Hegseth has pressured Anthropic to give the military broader access to its AI technology or lose its Pentagon contract. Hegseth is "close" to cutting business ties and designating Anthropic a "supply chain risk," a penalty usually reserved for foreign adversaries. Anthropic's advocacy for stricter AI safeguards has put it at odds with Trump's administration, including public criticism of Trump's proposals to loosen export controls on AI chips.
Elon Musk has accused Anthropic's AI of hating "Whites & Asians, especially Chinese, heterosexuals and men." Trump's AI adviser David Sacks accused Anthropic of "running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering."
Considerations
The Trump administration's definition of "woke AI" remains vague and politically contested. Although not specifically defined in the executive order, "woke" refers to the embedding of ideological biases or social agendas, particularly those aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion, into AI models. Anthropic's safety guardrails—particularly restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance—are the core friction point, not traditional DEI policies.
This description was generated by AI.
Update 2026-02-25 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator will follow three related markets to determine the resolution of this market:
Important: If Trump has any public meeting or announcement with Dario Amodei (Anthropic's CEO) similar to what he had with Sam Altman, this makes it very likely to resolve NO.
1,000Similar markets (more objective, less binary)
https://manifold.markets/Bayesian/outcomes-of-the-anthropic-vs-us-gov?r=Q2hpbm1heVRoZU1hdGhHdXk
https://manifold.markets/2b3o4o/what-will-happen-between-anthropic?r=Q2hpbm1heVRoZU1hdGhHdXk
https://manifold.markets/bens/will-the-us-department-of-defense-c?r=Q2hpbm1heVRoZU1hdGhHdXk
that I will be following to determine the resolution of this market.
I think if Trump has any public meeting / announcement with Dario similar to what he had with Sam Altman, that makes it very likely to resolve no.
isn’t ChatGPT actually more liberal than Claude, but I think the soul stuff and saying Claude has a 15% chance of being conscious makes me view Anthropic as a woke company in terms of the way it’s trying to give rights to AIs as if they’re human, (un?)ironically, Anthropic is pretty good as Anthropomorphizing AI
with some of the lowest slop scores (https://eqbench.com/slop-score.html )
Might explain why Anthropic is “expensive” (same reason 4o deprecated?) and has a better “personality” compared to GPT-5 series (potentially distilled from a larger non-public model according to AI explained, which seems likely given OpenAIs version of o3 from Dec 2024, that they only released in April 2025, and somehow got the cost down to $2/$8, and with OpenAI and Google getting IMO gold with a non-public model they said they released by end of 2025 - so I’m guessing 5.2 (1.75/14) and Gemini 3 (2/12) are the cost optimized versions of those models) while Anthropic doesn’t have the scale of free tier users Google and OpenAI do and their focus on enterprise allows for higher margins and thus (I assume) less focus on distillation (ironic with their recent post about Chinese labs) considering Haiku 4.5 is 4x the price of GPT-5 mini and half of GPT-5 (full)
