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Anthropic wins preliminary injunction in Trump DOD fight

admin — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:23:05 +0000

CEO and co-founder of Anthropic Dario Amodei speak onstage during the 2025 New York Times Dealbook Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 03, 2025 in New York City.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

A federal judge in San Francisco granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction in its lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Judge Rita Lin issued the ruling on Thursday, two days after lawyers for the artificial intelligence startup and the U.S. government appeared in court for a hearing. Anthropic sued the administration to try to reverse its blacklisting by the Pentagon and President Donald Trump’s directive banning federal agencies from using its Claude models.

Anthropic sought the injunction to pause those actions and prevent further monetary and reputational harm as the case unfolds. The order bars the Trump administration from implementing, applying or enforcing the president’s directive, and hampers the Pentagon’s efforts to designate Anthropic as a threat to U.S. national security.

“Punishing Anthropic for bringing public scrutiny to the government’s contracting position is classic illegal First Amendment retaliation,” Lin wrote in the order. A final verdict in the case could still be months away.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Lin pressed the government’s lawyers about why Anthropic was blacklisted. Her language in Thursday’s order was even sharper.

“Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government,” she wrote.

Following the ruling, Anthropic said it’s “grateful to the court for moving swiftly.”

“While this case was necessary to protect Anthropic, our customers, and our partners, our focus remains on working productively with the government to ensure all Americans benefit from safe, reliable AI,” the company said in a statement.

Anthropic’s suit earlier this month followed a dramatic couple weeks in Washington D.C., between the Department of Defense and one of the most valuable private companies in the world.

In a post on X in late February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a so-called supply chain risk, meaning that use of the company’s technology purportedly threatens U.S. national security. In early March, the DOD officially notified Anthropic about the designation via a letter.

Anthropic is the first American company to publicly be named a supply chain risk, as the designation has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries. The label requires Defense contractors, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir, to certify that they do not use Claude in their work with the military.

The Trump administration relied on two distinct designations – 10 U.S.C. § 3252 and 41 U.S.C. § 4713 – to justify the action, and they have to be challenged in two separate courts. Because of that, Anthropic has filed another lawsuit for a formal review of the Defense Department’s determination in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

Shortly before Hegseth declared Anthropic a supply chain risk, President Donald Trump wrote a Truth Social post ordering federal agencies to “immediately cease” all use of Anthropic’s technology. He said there would be a six-month phase-out period for agencies like the DOD.

“WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” Trump wrote.

The Trump administration’s actions surprised many officials in Washington who had come to admire and rely on Anthropic’s technology. The company was the first to deploy its models across the DOD’s classified networks, and it was championed for its ability to integrate with existing Defense contractors like Palantir.

Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon in July, but as the company began negotiating Claude’s deployment on the DOD’s GenAI.mil AI platform in September, talks stalled.

The DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the Pentagon unfettered access to its models across all lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.

The two failed to reach an agreement, and now, the dispute will be settled in court.

“Everyone, including Anthropic, agrees that the Department of [Defense] is free to stop using Claude and look for a more permissive AI vendor,” Lin said during the hearing Tuesday. “I don’t see that as being what this case is about. I see the question in this case as being a very different one, which is whether the government violated the law.

WATCH: Anthropic vs. Pentagon hearing

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Billionaire Louis Bacon wins defamation lawsuit against convicted sex offender Peter Nygard

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 07:47:02 +0000

Billionaire hedge fund manager Louis Bacon has won his long-running defamation lawsuit alleging that former fashion mogul and convicted sex offender Peter Nygard spread lies about him during a public spat over their adjacent properties in the Bahamas.

Justice Richard Latin in Manhattan said in an order on Monday that Nygard had admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims against Bacon, including that he was a murderer, narcotics trafficker and white supremacist. Bacon said in his lawsuit that Nygard’s claims were “brazen lies.”

Nygard’s lawyer, Peter Sverd, said in a statement on Tuesday that Nygard will continue to fight the case and expects to appeal.

A judge’s order said Peter Nygard (left) had admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims against Louis Bacon, including that he was a murderer, narcotics trafficker and white supremacist. Bacon said in his lawsuit that Nygard’s claims were “brazen lies.”

Lawyers for Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management LP, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Tuesday.

Nygard, the founder of Nygard International, who was once one of Canada’s richest men, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Canada for sexual assault.

Bacon and Nygard were neighbors in an exclusive gated community in the Bahamas and became embroiled in a bitter dispute over Nygard’s efforts to expand his property, which Bacon opposed.

Bacon and Nygard were neighbors in an exclusive gated community in the Bahamas and became embroiled in a bitter dispute over Nygard’s efforts to expand his property, which Bacon opposed. NY Post

In his lawsuit filed in 2015, Bacon accused Nygard of orchestrating an obsessive and malicious smear campaign to falsely link Bacon to arson, bribery, drug smuggling, the Ku Klux Klan and murder.

Nygard was found guilty by a Toronto jury on four counts of sexual assault in 2023. He was acquitted of a fifth count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. Nygard has denied the allegations against him.

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Elon Musk wins appeal to restore $56B Tesla pay deal that was called ‘unfathomable’

admin — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 05:30:25 +0000

Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package from Tesla, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.”

The ruling overturns a decision that had prompted a furious backlash from Musk and damaged Delaware’s business-friendly reputation.

The court said a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk.

Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package from Tesla, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court. Above, Musk with President Trump last year. REUTERS

The remedy of total rescission “leaves Musk uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years,” the 49-page ruling issued on Friday stated.

The 2018 pay package is now worth about $139 billion based on the price of Tesla’s stock at the close of trading on Friday.

Tesla shares were up less than 1% in after-hours trading following the ruling.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk posted on X that he was “vindicated.”

The pay package was by far the largest ever until Tesla shareholders approved a new, even larger pay plan in November.

The ruling means that Musk can finally get paid for his work since 2018, when he transformed Tesla from a struggling startup to one of the world’s most valuable companies. If Tesla’s appeal had failed, it could have triggered a $26 billion hit to profit over two years to account for the replacement stock-compensation package it had promised Musk – at today’s much higher stock price.

The pay package was by far the largest ever until Tesla shareholders approved a new, even larger pay plan in November. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

The 2018 pay deal provided Musk options to acquire about 304 million Tesla shares at a deeply discounted price if the company hit various milestones, which it did. The options represent around 9% of Tesla’s outstanding stock.

Musk never collected his stock options because soon after shareholders approved the 2018 compensation, the board was sued by Richard Tornetta, an investor with just nine Tesla shares.

In 2024, after a five-day trial, Delaware Judge Kathaleen McCormick concluded that Tesla’s directors were conflicted and key facts were hidden from shareholders when they voted to approve the plan. She ordered that the 2018 plan be rescinded.

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Musk accused Delaware judges of being activists who are hostile to tech founders and he urged businesses to follow Tesla and reincorporate elsewhere. Dropbox, Roblox, Trade Desk and Coinbase were among the handful of large companies that moved their legal homes to Nevada or Texas. However, Delaware remains by far the most popular legal home for US public companies.

Tesla’s board had warned that Musk, the world’s richest person who also leads the SpaceX rocket venture and artificial intelligence startup xAI, could leave the electric car company if he did not get the pay he wanted and an increase in his voting power.

In November, shareholders approved a new pay package that could be worth $878 billion if Tesla meets targets for self-driving vehicles, a robotaxi network and sales of humanoid robots.

Tesla has taken steps to reduce the risk that a shareholder could tie up the 2025 package in the courts.

The Austin-based company is now incorporated in Texas, which allows Tesla to require that any investor or group of investors must own 3% of the company stock before suing for an alleged corporate law violation. A stake of that size would be worth around $30 billion and Musk is the only individual with that much stock.

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US airlines say it is ‘imperative’ FAA get quick wins in air traffic overhaul

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 11:20:12 +0000

A group representing major U.S. airlines said it is imperative the Federal Aviation Administration accomplish some “quick wins” in the $12.5 billion overhaul of the aging air traffic control system, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Airlines for America CEO Chris Sununu in a previously unreported letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the FAA should quickly implement airspace modernization designs, buy simulators to improve controller training, lay telecommunications fiber and buy new radars and radios.

“These initial wins will create tangible benefits for the traveling and shipping public, help coordinate messaging on progress and boost optimism on the prospects of moving the project to completion,” Sununu, who heads the group that represents American Airlines (AAL.O), United Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), and Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), wrote.

Airlines for America CEO Chris Sununu sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stating that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs to implement significant changes to the aging air traffic control system. MoiraM – stock.adobe.com

Duffy has said he wants air passengers to see progress by the start of next summer’s travel season.

He wants Congress to approve another $19 billion on top of the initial $12.5 billion to completely overhaul the system.

USDOT and FAA did not immediately comment.

The FAA has faced criticism for prior lagging modernization efforts.

The U.S. air traffic control system is badly in need of overhaul and routinely suffers serious technology outages.

Duffy has said the FAA has been forced at times to go to eBay to get spare parts.

A government report last year said 51 of its 138 air traffic control systems are unsustainable.

The company represents American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Southwest Airlines. REUTERS

The letter said the FAA should reduce training time for new controllers, accelerate plans to eliminate paper strips to track planes, deploy remote tower technology at several untowered locations, move faster to eliminate floppy disks and deploy new cloud-based controller displays.

“Reducing the controller training washout rate would increase the number of controllers,” Sununu wrote.

The air traffic control network’s woes were years in the making, but a rush of high-profile mishaps, near-misses and a catastrophic crash in January between a U.S. Army helicopter and regional American Airlines jet that killed 67 spiked public alarm.

A shortage of controllers for more than a decade has repeatedly delayed flights and many are working mandatory overtime and six-day weeks.

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The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of targeted staffing levels.

USDOT last week interviewed the two candidates vying to become the project manager of the multi-billion dollar effort.

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Meta Wins Major AI Copyright Suit

admin — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:13:10 +0000

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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Synergy

Cynthia Erivo has announced a memoir of “powerful, personal vignettes” intended for “anyone who has been told they’re too much.” Simply More will be released November 18, just days before Wicked: For Good hits theaters. You know it’s going to be killer on audio.

The book will use “vulnerable and enlightening” lessons from Erivo’s journey to “to help readers discover their true capabilities.” The multi-talented performer told PEOPLE she is hoping to “provide a little encouragement to anyone who is asking themselves and challenging themselves to be simply more.” An inspiring message from an inspiring star released alongside the second part of an inspiring story? That’s how you do it.

That Old Bookish Magic

What was the book that turned you into a capital-R Reader? At his Substack The New Dork Review of Books, original Book Riot contributor Greg Zimmerman reflects on the book that changed his life, and not just because it was the first one that compelled him to stay up all night reading.

It’s a novel about finding your destiny, about identifying what it is you are supposed to be doing, which for me I realized at that moment was trying to find more books like it. And if I couldn’t find more books like that one, I knew the quest would keep me happy for however long I got to stay on this floating rock in space.

It’s a lovely piece that taps into one of the best parts of being a book lover, and I so appreciate an opportunity to consider my own life-changing reads. The Sparrow. Gilead. Beloved. When Women Were Birds. Never Let Me Go. What would make your list? Let us know in the comments!

A Toolkit for the Next Generation of Activists

Teens have become integral leaders in the fight against book bans, but it can be hard to know where to start if there’s not already an advocacy group in your school or neighborhood. Enter The Freedom to Read Teen Advocacy Toolkit, a robust program and toolkit built for library workers, educators, and community organizations working with today’s young people to support and bolster teen advocacy and activism. Bravo to the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned program for creating an incredible resource. May their—and your—efforts succeed. Learn more about the toolkit here.

Today In Books

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Meta wins AI copyright case, judge welcomes other to bring lawsuits

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 02:07:44 +0000

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta on Wednesday prevailed against a group of 13 authors in a major copyright case involving the company’s Llama artificial intelligence model, but the judge made clear his ruling was limited to this case.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria sided with Meta’s argument that the company’s use of books to train its large language models, or LLMs, is protected under the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law.

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, alleged that Meta violated the nation’s copyright law because the company did not seek permission from the authors to use their books for the company’s AI model, among other claims.

Notably, Chhabria said that it “is generally illegal to copy protected works without permission,” but in this case, the plaintiffs failed to present a compelling argument that Meta’s use of books to train Llama caused “market harm.” Chhabria wrote that the plaintiffs had put forward two flawed arguments for their case.

“On this record Meta has defeated the plaintiffs’ half-hearted argument that its copying causes or threatens significant market harm,” Chhabria said. “That conclusion may be in significant tension with reality.”

Meta’s practice of “copying the work for a transformative purpose” is protected by the fair use doctrine, the judge wrote.

“We appreciate today’s decision from the Court,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology.”

Though there could be valid arguments that Meta’s data training practice negatively impacts the book market, the plaintiffs did not adequately make their case, the judge wrote.

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs did not respond to a request for comment.

Still, Chhabria noted several flaws in Meta’s defense, including the notion that the “public interest” would be “badly disserved” if the company and other businesses were prohibited “from using copyrighted text as training data without paying to do so.”

“Meta seems to imply that such a ruling would stop the development of LLMs and other generative AI technologies in its tracks,” Chhabria wrote. “This is nonsense.”

The judge left the door open for other authors to bring similar AI-related copyright lawsuits against Meta, saying that “in the grand scheme of things, the consequences of this ruling are limited.”

“This is not a class action, so the ruling only affects the rights of these thirteen authors — not the countless others whose works Meta used to train its models,” he wrote. “And, as should now be clear, this ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful.”

Additionally, Chhabria noted that there is still a pending, separate claim made by the plaintiffs alleging that Meta “may have illegally distributed their works (via torrenting).”

Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train its AI model Claude was also “transformative,” thus satisfying the fair use doctrine. Still, that judge said that Anthropic must face a trial over allegations that it downloaded millions of pirated books to train its AI systems.”

“That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft, but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” the judge wrote.

WATCH: Meta pushes back on ban of WhatsApp on devices used by House of Representatives.

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Amazon-backed Anthropic wins key ruling in AI copyright lawsuit filed by authors

admin — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 23:45:59 +0000

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled late on Monday that Anthropic’s use of books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system was legal under US copyright law.

Siding with tech companies on a pivotal question for the AI industry, US District Judge William Alsup said Anthropic made “fair use” of books by writers Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson to train its Claude large language model.

Alsup also said, however, that Anthropic’s copying and storage of more than 7 million pirated books in a “central library” infringed the authors’ copyrights and was not fair use. The judge has ordered a trial in December to determine how much Anthropic owes for the infringement.

Anthropic’s use of books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system was legal under US copyright law, a judge ruled. Above, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in May. AP

US copyright law says that willful copyright infringement can justify statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work.

An Anthropic spokesperson said the company was pleased that the court recognized its AI training was “transformative” and “consistent with copyright’s purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress.”

The writers filed the proposed class action against Anthropic last year, arguing that the company, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission or compensation to teach Claude to respond to human prompts.

The proposed class action is one of several lawsuits brought by authors, news outlets and other copyright owners against companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta Platforms over their AI training.

The doctrine of fair use allows the use of copyrighted works without the copyright owner’s permission in some circumstances.

Fair use is a key legal defense for the tech companies, and Alsup’s decision is the first to address it in the context of generative AI.

The authors’ lawsuit alleged Amazon-backed Anthropic used pirated versions of their books without permission or compensation to teach Claude to respond to human prompts. AP

AI companies argue their systems make fair use of copyrighted material to create new, transformative content, and that being forced to pay copyright holders for their work could hamstring the burgeoning AI industry.

Anthropic told the court that it made fair use of the books and that US copyright law “not only allows, but encourages” its AI training because it promotes human creativity. The company said its system copied the books to “study Plaintiffs’ writing, extract uncopyrightable information from it, and use what it learned to create revolutionary technology.”

Copyright owners say that AI companies are unlawfully copying their work to generate competing content that threatens their livelihoods.

Alsup agreed with Anthropic on Monday that its training was “exceedingly transformative.”

Anthropic’s copying and storage of more than 7 million pirated books in a “central library” infringed the authors’ copyrights and was not fair use. The judge has ordered a trial in December to determine how much Anthropic owes for the infringement. AP

“Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different,” Alsup said.

Alsup also said, however, that Anthropic violated the authors’ rights by saving pirated copies of their books as part of a “central library of all the books in the world” that would not necessarily be used for AI training.

Anthropic and other prominent AI companies including OpenAI and Meta Platforms have been accused of downloading pirated digital copies of millions of books to train their systems.

Anthropic had told Alsup in a court filing that the source of its books was irrelevant to fair use.

“This order doubts that any accused infringer could ever meet its burden of explaining why downloading source copies from pirate sites that it could have purchased or otherwise accessed lawfully was itself reasonably necessary to any subsequent fair use,” Alsup said on Monday.

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