Despite Trump calling SF’s Anthropic a “Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about” and banning government use of their AI tool Claude, the administration still had to use Claude in its Iran attacks.This past Friday afternoon and evening saw an insa ne set of news events play out for both the SF tech industry and global events. Early in the afternoon, President Trump declared he was severing all government ties with San Francisco-based AI company Anthropic after the company raised concerns that its tools could be used for AI-based mass murder and domestic surveillance. By 7 pm Friday, Anthropic's SF rival OpenAI stepped in and said they would gladly take the contracts. And by 8 pm Friday night, the US was launching military attacks on Iran.  Image: via Truth SocialWhen the Trump administration banned all government use of Anthropic and its well regarded tool Claude, Trump declared on Truth Social that “Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War,” and that “I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!”That is all quite hilarious when considered in the context that the US military still used Anthropic’s Claude tool anyway in this weekend’s attacks on Iran, according to a report in the Sunday Wall Street Journal. That Journal article is behind a paywall, but the same information was also reported in a free article at Axios separately at about that same time. The Journal's reporting says the Pentagon used Claude in the Iran attacks to select targets, conduct theoretical battlefield simulations, and for general intelligence assessments. According to Axios, despite Trump’s bans and tantrums, “The Pentagon still sees Anthropic's Claude as superior to other models.”And maybe getting banned by the Trump administration is good for business. As a separate Axios report points out, the Trump ban sent Anthropic’s Claude to the number one most downloaded app in the Apple App Store over the weekend, a position it still held as of Monday morning.  Related: Pentagon Trying to Force SF-Based Anthropic to Weaken AI Security for Killing Purposes, Anthropic Not Backing Down [SFist]Image: CHONGQING, CHINA - DECEMBER 29: In this photo illustration, a person holds a smartphone displaying the logo of “Claude,” an AI language model by Anthropic, with the company’s logo visible in the background, illustrating the rapid development and adoption of generative AI technologies, on December 29, 2024 in Chongqing, China. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a cornerstone of China’s strategic ambitions, with the government aiming to establish the country as a global leader in AI by 2030. (Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images) ...read more read less