Will the Pentagon’s Anthropic controversy scare startups away from defense work?

Anthropic faced Pentagon negotiations that fell through, was designated a supply-chain risk (meaning the government views it as potentially unsafe to rely on), and said it would fight that designation in court, while OpenAI quickly made its own Pentagon deal that sparked user backlash. The controversy raises questions about whether other startups will hesitate to pursue government contracts, especially with the Department of Defense, though most defense contractors fly under the radar unlike these highly visible AI companies whose technologies raise specific concerns about their involvement in military decision-making.