The U.S. was searching for the crew of an American fighter jet Friday after it was downed in Iran, a U.S. official told MS NOW.

It isn’t clear if the plane was shot down or went down for another reason, MS NOW said. The jet was an F-15, which has two crew members, and the whereabouts of the servicemembers was unknown, according to MS NOW.

The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command didn’t immediately comment.

The New York Times said Iran shot down the fighter jet, citing U.S. and Israeli officials and Iranian state media, though MS NOW said it hadn’t independently verified the reporting.

It appeared to be the first known loss of a U.S. jet in the country since the war in Iran started in late February.

The downing of the jet comes at a delicate time, when the U.S. has showed few signs of slowing its assault on Iran and reports of potential peace talks did not yield a breakthrough. The death toll from the conflict is nearing 5,100 across the Middle East, according to MS NOW.

The war has now gone on for more than a month, suffocating tanker traffic through the critical Strait of Hormuz and threatening supplies of crude oil, fertilizer and other key commodities.

President Donald Trump claimed in a social media post Friday that the U.S. could “easily” open the strait, “TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE.”

Trump also threatened late Thursday to escalate attacks on Iranian infrastructure. He said the U.S. “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran,” citing bridges and electric power plants.

In remarks Wednesday, Trump said the U.S. would attack Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants, saying the “New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!” in a Truth Social post.

Trump did not elaborate on what needed to be “done,” but said the U.S. “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran.”

Hours later, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reportedly claimed that a U.S. F-35 fighter jet was shot down over central Iran. Images of the jet were posted on Telegram, with one photo that appeared to show the words “U.S. Air Forces in Europe” on what appeared to be the tail section of a plane.

The U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, and Iranian authorities did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Trump’s latest threat came a day after a nationwide address in which he said the U.S. military would hit Iran “extremely hard” for the next two or three weeks. He added that the U.S. would “bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”

Hours after his speech, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi struck a defiant tone on X, saying that “there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then,” referring to Trump’s stone age remarks.

“Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?” Araghchi said.

Iran has effectively shut tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil route, after the U.S. and Israel attacked the country on Feb. 28.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to send Iran back to the “stone age” as the war entered its second month and the U.S. military build-up in the Middle East showed no signs of slowing.

Despite reports of overtures from the U.S., including ceasefires and a 15-point peace plan to end the war, Iran has publicly contradicted multiple reports about negotiations with the Trump administration on numerous occasions.

Tehran had described the 15-point proposal as “extremely maximalist and unreasonable,” according to an Al Jazeera report on March 25, citing a high-ranking diplomatic source.

Trump said Wednesday that Iran’s “New Regime President” had asked Washington for a ceasefire, a claim that Tehran has denied. Trump has not specified who the “President” is.

“We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!,” he wrote.

Attacks on power plants could constitute a war crime and violate international law, legal experts said.

In a letter dated Thursday and signed by over 100 law experts, the group said international law prohibits attacks on “objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, and the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could entail war crimes.”

Trump had also earlier said that he could target water desalination plants in Iran.

The Gulf Cooperation Council on Thursday called on the United Nations Security Council to take “all necessary measures to ensure the immediate cessation of Iranian aggressions against the Council states.”

The six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have come under attack from Iranian missiles and drones as the war entered its second month.

The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said that its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery was hit by drones early on Friday.

Jassim Albudaiwi, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said that while the bloc does not seek war, Iran had “exceeded all red lines” and described Tehran’s attacks as “treacherous.”

Bahrain, the current rotating president of the Security Council, has led an effort to pass a U.N. resolution to ​authorize “all necessary means” to protect commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

But the proposal reportedly stalled after veto-wielding Security Council members China, Russia and France objected to the draft resolution, which would have authorized military action against Iran.

Wartime propaganda has evolved for the social media age, and Iran is now vying with the U.S. to be the world’s biggest keyboard warrior.

As the real-world bombardment in the Middle East continues and casualties mount, both sides in the month-old war are also firing off ironic, pop-culture-steeped memes on the online battlefield. Iran’s new leaders have quickly assumed an online fighting posture, amping up their memes and pointed attacks on the U.S. and Israel.

“What we’re seeing is not just a war of weapons, but it’s also a war of aesthetics,” said Nancy Snow, a professor and author who studies propaganda. “Whoever controls the meme controls the mood.”

Iran’s prime target is President Donald Trump, with state media and top officials alike relentlessly mocking and amplifying criticisms of the U.S. leader.

Top members of Iran’s parliament, its Revolutionary Guard and even its president, Masoud Pezeshkian, have sought to insult or undermine Trump in their messaging. And they’re using the world’s most popular social media platforms, such as Facebook and X, to get the word out.

Among the most striking examples: a series of seemingly AI-generated videos depicting Iranian military successes against the U.S. and Israel in a Legoesque cartoon art style.

One shows a panicked Trump ordering an airstrike after reviewing the “Epstein File” alongside Satan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Another, a rap diss track, calls Trump a “loser” and accuses him of being Netanyahu’s “puppet” over images of stock market sell-offs, missile strikes and coffins.

Those and other messages out of Iran regularly reference Jeffrey Epstein, the late notorious sex offender and former Trump friend at the center of conspiracy theories that the president launched the Iran war to distract the public from headlines about releases of files related to the Epstein investigation.

The plain intent of Iran’s messaging is not just to project defiance and counter U.S. assessments of Tehran’s military weakness, but also to undermine Trump by homing in on some of his biggest political vulnerabilities.

“Iran is blending grievance with meme culture — mixing Epstein, anti-war sentiment and pop visuals to penetrate fragmented Western audiences,” Snow said.

As for why they’re using Legos to convey their message, it may be because of their universal appeal, said Dan Butler, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis who uses the toys in his teaching.

“The same reason it works in education is the reason actors would use it for propaganda: people like Legos and will tune in to watch Lego-based films,” Butler told CNBC in an email.

“In fact if something is violent, using Legos might make people lower their defenses and also be more likely to share the material,” he said.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has melded wartime messaging with internet culture even more literally.

In the early days of the war, official accounts shared videos splicing clips from sports, movies and video games into real footage of military strikes.

The visuals dovetail with the relentlessly bombastic and boastful rhetoric from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have repeatedly trumpeted the “obliteration” of Iran’s military while assuring that the U.S. is rapidly nearing its objectives for victory.

But the White House officials involved in creating the videos say they have proven effective in drawing attention and connecting with young people. One of them told Politico the efforts are meant to tout U.S. troops’ heroic work “in a way that captivates an audience.”

The White House told CNBC it intends to stick with its messaging strategy.

“The legacy media wants us to apologize for highlighting the United States Military’s incredible success, but the White House will continue showcasing the many examples of Iran’s ballistic missiles, production facilities, and dreams of owning a nuclear weapon being destroyed in real time,” spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

On the latter metric, the strategy has been a success: Four videos posted on the official White House X account on March 5 and 6 have garnered nearly 100 million impressions as of April 1.

Iran’s goal isn’t to convince or corral its own people — who are reportedly facing extended internet outages — but rather to craft a “response offensive” to undermine the U.S. globally, Stahl said.

“There’s a lot of erosion with regard to potential [U.S.] ally support for this war, and these messages from Iran are playing right into that.”

It’s not all memes and trolling. Iranian officials are also homing in on the war’s destabilizing impact on the global economy and energy prices.

On Monday morning, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. is “in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”

The S&P 500 ended the trading day lower while oil prices continued to rise.

Ghalibaf on Tuesday shared a CNN article on Americans struggling with the war-induced spike in U.S. gas prices.

“Sad, but this is what happens when your leaders put others ahead of hard-working and ordinary Americans. It’s not America First anymore … it’s Israel First,” he wrote.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has confidentially filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, sources told CNBC’s David Faber, bringing Elon Musk’s rocket company one step closer to what’s expected to be a record public offering.

Bloomberg was first to report on SpaceX’s confidential filing, citing people familiar with the matter, and adding that the company could seek a valuation of $1.75 trillion, with a listing around June.

Founded by Musk in 2002 to develop and operate reusable rockets, SpaceX has turned into NASA’s biggest launch partner after the agency ended its space shuttle program in 2011. The company merged with Musk’s xAI in February, creating a combined entity that he valued at the time at $1.25 trillion.

When SpaceX eventually lists, Musk will become the first person to helm two separate trillion-dollar publicly traded companies. Musk is the world’s richest person, with a net worth of close to $840 billion, according to Forbes. Tesla, which Musk has counted on for the vast majority of his liquid wealth, has a market cap of around $1.4 trillion.

A confidential filing allows companies to submit their financials to the SEC for regulatory review before revealing them to the public and prospective investors. SpaceX will have to release a public filing at least 15 days before its IPO road show.

While SpaceX still has numerous hurdles to clear to reach the public market, the offering — assuming it does happen — will be packed with superlatives. With the company reportedly looking to raise up to $75 billion, it would be more than three times the size of the biggest U.S. IPO to date. China’s Alibaba raised $22 billion in 2014, putting it ahead of Visa, which raised close to $18 billion in 2008.

SpaceX has received over $24.4 billion from its work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which researches federal spending and government contracts. That includes contracts from NASA, the Air Force and Space Force, among others agencies.

Reena Aggarwal, a professor of finance at Georgetown and an IPO expert, said that even with all hype around Musk and SpaceX, the company still needs a receptive public market. Stocks have been volatile of late due largely to the U.S.-Iran war and spiking oil prices. The Nasdaq is coming off its steepest weekly drop in nearly a year.

“You can have a great company, with great fundamentals and a lot of investor interest — and an IPO can still flop if the markets have turned south, if there’s too much volatility in the market,” Aggarwal said. Hopefully the current geopolitical situations will have cooled down by June and there will be less uncertainty.”

WATCH: SpaceX has filed confidentially for IPO

European defense tech startups are ramping up commercial discussions with Middle East governments since the Iran war, company execs told CNBC. Another CEO said interest from Gulf states was “skyrocketing” as they race to bolster measures to counter drone and missile attacks.

Iran has targeted its neighbors since a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation began at the end of February, with more than 3,000 drones and missiles having been fired on the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, according to data compiled by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

European startups that develop defense technology, in particular drone and missile interceptors, told CNBC they were increasingly talking with and receiving approaches from Gulf states to supply their militaries. Others are ramping up hiring in the region as they look to meet the demand for their systems.

Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that the company was in talks to raise new funding at more than a $1 billion valuation.

UK-based startup Valarian, which builds digital infrastructure for sensitive use cases including those in defense, didn’t have defense contracts with Gulf states before the Iran war but has seen commercial discussions with them increase since the conflict began, CEO Max Buchan told CNBC.

Uforce has seen interest from Gulf states in its defense tech “skyrocket” since the beginning of the Iran war, CEO Oleg Rogynskyy told CNBC. Uforce is developing several defense technologies, including counter-uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), maritime and strike drones and battlefield software.

“We’re having a ton of inbound interest,” he said. “Gulf states are coming to us to figure out how to do large-scale, unmanned operations.” That included intercept, de-mining, strike, future convoy and escort and patrol operations at sea, Rogynskyy added.

Uforce has been providing defence tech for Ukrainian operations in the Black Sea, he told CNBC, adding that the lessons from that war “are directly applicable to what is happening in Iran, both from an operational, tactical and strategic perspective.”

“We are looking at the very similar mine and missile-based sea denial from the Iran side, to how Russia prevented Ukrainian grain from being exported, initially.”

Uforce, which raised $50 million at a valuation above $1 billion earlier this month, is now looking to hire a team permanently based in the Middle East, because of the demand caused by the Iran war. The company currently has a Ukrainian delegation in the region, but aims to recruit five to 10 employees in the next few weeks, Rogynskyy told CNBC.

Frankenburg is also looking to build out a Middle East-based team. The startup didn’t have any employees in the region before the war, but is now looking to hire there “significantly,” CEO Salm told CNBC. While the Middle East has been a focus of Frankenburg since the company’s inception in 2024, hiring plans have been accelerated because of the Iran war, he said.

Defense tech startups in Europe have raised record sums in recent years as global geopolitical tensions have risen. The sector picked up $1.8 billion in 2025, according to deal-counting platform Dealroom, nearly three times the previous highest yearly figure, and has already raised $854 million so far in 2026.

The U.K. and Germany have emerged as key hubs of this wave of new defense companies, with France and Ukraine also developing increasingly well-funded startups.

The U.S. Army is investigating the apparent flyby of that military branch’s Apache helicopters over the weekend at the Nashville, Tennessee, home of singer Kid Rock, a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, an Army spokesman said Monday.

On Saturday, Kid Rock posted videos on his X account showing two helicopters hovering and flying close to his home, as he pointed at them, pumped his fist in appreciation and saluted while standing next to a pool, a miniature Statue of Liberty and a sign above his head that said, “Southern White House.”

“This is a level of respect that s— for brains Governor of California will never know,” the singer wrote in one post, referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom, a staunch Democratic critic of Trump. “God Bless America and all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend her.”

“The Army is aware of a video circulating online that appears to show AH 64 Apache helicopters operating in the vicinity of a private residence in the Nashville area,” Army Spokesman Maj. Montrell Russell said in an emailed statement to CNBC.

“Army aviators must adhere to strict safety standards, professionalism, and established flight regulations. An administrative review is underway to assess the mission and verify compliance with regulations and airspace requirements,” Russell said.

The spokesman added, “Appropriate action will be taken if any violations are found. Until the review is complete, there will be no further comment.”

The X posts by Kid Rock were made on the same day as anti-Trump “No Kings” demonstrations were held around the United States.

Newsom’s X account in February mocked Kid Rock for a video showing him and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. working out together shirtless.

The Senate early Friday morning advanced a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, in a move to end the partial government shutdown that has disrupted air travel across the U.S.

After weeks of Republicans fighting Democrats on their calls to remove funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement from any potential deal, the bill does exactly that. It would fund all of DHS except for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, though it does not include the changes to ICE’s immigration enforcement practices that Democrats had demanded.

It now moves to the House for final approval. A vote could be held as soon as Friday as lawmakers seek to leave Washington for a scheduled recess.

“This could’ve been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said from the Senate floor Friday. “Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms.”

The Senate vote is an encouraging step toward ending the shutdown, which resulted in missed paychecks for Transportation Security Administration agents and long lines at airports. The deal comes just in time for lawmakers to leave town for a pre-planned two-week recess beginning at the end of this week.

Lawmakers scrambled much of the week to strike a deal before the recess, but as talks broke down late Thursday, Trump intervened and announced via Truth Social that he would pay TSA agents via executive order.

“Because the Democrats have recklessly created a true National Crisis, I am using my authorities under the Law to protect our Great Country, as I always will do!,” Trump posted. “Therefore, I am going to sign an Order instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, to immediately pay our TSA Agents in order to address this Emergency Situation, and to quickly stop the Democrat Chaos at the Airports.”

The shutdown began in February in the weeks after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a federal immigration crackdown. Democrats demanded change with ICE and DHS more broadly and refused to fund the department.

Friday’s vote largely ends that impasse, though it was far from a kumbaya moment.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that Democrats “remained intransigent and unreasonable” in their DHS funding demands.

“Congressional Democrats have done real damage to the appropriations process by repeatedly forcing government shutdowns and refusing to fund entire agencies,” Collins said. “Their refusal to fund ICE and Border Patrol leaves our borders and our country less secure and sets a precedent that they may one day come to regret.”

Republicans have vowed to restore funding to ICE via a second party-line legislative package using the Senate “budget reconciliation” procedure they used to pass last year’s tax and spending bill. Republicans’ next measure with ICE funding may also include a grab-bag of other issues, including defense funding and the SAVE America Act, a Trump-backed voter-ID and noncitizen voting bill that has captivated the right-flank of the GOP in recent months.

“This bill will focus on ensuring ICE and other vital functions of homeland security, as well as the U.S. military and efforts to increase voter integrity, are Democrat-resistance proof,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a post to X on Thursday.

Budget reconciliation is a procedural tool that requires only a simple majority to pass — as opposed to the 60 votes usually required to overcome a filibuster in the Senate — provided its components have some spending or revenue impact.

The U.S. is preparing to send thousands more troops to the Middle East, prompting speculation about a ground attack on Iran amid conflicting accounts of peace talks.

The Pentagon is reportedly preparing to send about 3,000 troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, alongside two Marine Expeditionary Units, to assist military operations in Iran. CNBC has contacted the White House and is awaiting a response.

Military experts said that the number of additional troops being deployed to the region appears to be consistent with plans for discrete and time-limited operations — rather than a sustained ground campaign.

It puts two strategic Iranian islands in the spotlight and raises questions about a potential move to seize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear materials.

Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis estimated that there were likely only around 4,000 to 5,000 “trigger pullers” or ground troops.

“That is enough to seize a small target for a period of time. You’ve got to understand, even the 82nd Airborne Division, it’s an immediate reaction force to provide very quick reaction on the ground but only in advance of something bigger coming in behind that,” Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

“I have seen no evidence that any kind of a force of size has been even considered, much less alerted, prepared, equipped, trained up that you would need to go … That takes months of time to do.”

Davis said that, from the limited number of ground troops being deployed, there were three possibilities that the U.S. could theoretically execute.

The first possibility is seizing Qeshm Island, which sits “in the horseshoe bend of the Strait of Hormuz,” Davis said.

Qeshm Island, off Iran’s southern coast, is the largest island in the Persian Gulf. Located near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, the arrow-shaped island has emerged as a potential U.S. target amid reports that anti-ship missiles, mines, drones and attack craft are being kept there in underground tunnels.

“All enemy movements are under the full surveillance of our armed forces,” Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said on X, according to a Google translation.

“If they step out of line, all the vital infrastructure of that regional country will, without restriction, become the target of relentless attacks,” he added.

Ruben Stewart, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank, said the number of U.S. forces preparing to be deployed was not consistent with a sustained ground campaign.

“What is notably absent are the heavy armoured units, logistics depth, and command structures required for a prolonged land war. In practical terms, this is a force that can act quickly and selectively, but not one that could sustain operations deep inside Iran or over an extended period,” Stewart told CNBC by email.

“Seizing Kharg Island is technically feasible but escalatory, given its centrality to Iran’s oil exports. By contrast, securing Iran’s nuclear material would be the least realistic with this force as it would require a far larger, sustained ground presence,” he added.

The relatively limited level of deployment was perhaps best understood as a tool of coercive leverage, Stewart said, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to increase its bargaining power and signal that it has options if diplomacy fails.

The White House has said that Trump has been engaged in “productive” talks with Iran over the last three days, adding that the military operation in Iran was “ahead of schedule.”

Iran, however, has repeatedly denied holding talks with Washington.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said Tuesday that the decision by the Pentagon to blacklist Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence models “looks like an attempt to cripple” the company.

Anthropic appeared in San Francisco federal court on Tuesday to ask Lin to temporarily pause the Pentagon’s blacklisting and President Donald Trump’s directive banning federal government agencies from using that technology.

If the preliminary injunction is awarded, the AI startup will be able to continue doing business with government contractors and federal agencies as its lawsuit against the Trump administration plays out in court.

Without the injunction, the company has said, it could lose billions of dollars in business.

Earlier in March, the Department of Defense designated Anthropic a so-called supply chain risk, meaning that use of the company’s technology purportedly threatens U.S. national security. It was the first time an American company had been hit with that designation.

The label, if allowed to continue, will require defense contractors, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir, to certify that they do not use Claude in their work with the military.

“This is something that has never been done with respect to American company,” Anthropic’s counsel Michael Mongan said during the hearing. “It is a very narrow authority. It doesn’t apply here, and it’s not a normal way to respond to the concerns that have been articulated by the other side.”

Palantir is continuing to use Claude in its work with the department as the legal battle plays out, CEO Alex Karp told CNBC on March 12. Anthropic’s model is also being used in the war with Iran.

Anthropic has argued that there is no basis to consider the company a supply chain risk. The company also said it is being unfairly retaliated against because it demanded that the DOD not use Claude for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. The Pentagon insists it does not use the AI models for such purposes.

Lin said she expects to issue an order on Anthropic’s motion in the next few days.

On Monday, the judge gave lawyers for Anthropic and the government a list of questions she wants answered at the hearing.

One of those questions was: “What evidence in the record shows that Anthropic had ongoing access to or control over Claude after delivering it to the government, such that Anthropic could engage in acts of sabotage or subversion?”

In its motion seeking a preliminary injunction, Anthropic argued that such an order would prevent the company from incurring further economic and reputational harm.

“The government has infringed on Anthropic’s right to speak freely; it has disparaged the company’s good name by stigmatizing it with an unlawful designation as a national security risk; it has deprived Anthropic of government contracts and damaged its relationships with business partners in the private sector; and it has put millions, possibly billions, of dollars at risk,” the motion stated. “Absent immediate relief from this Court, those harms will continue to mount.”

The company also noted that an injunction would not require the U.S. government to use its models or prevent it from transitioning to another AI vendor. 

Before the conflict erupted in late February, Anthropic was one of the first AI companies to partner with many U.S. agencies as the government sought to rapidly upgrade its systems and capabilities with cutting-edge AI tech.

Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon in July and was the first AI lab to deploy its technology across the agency’s classified networks.

But as the company began negotiating Claude’s deployment on the DOD’s GenAI.mil AI platform in September, talks stalled over how the military could use the models.

The department has insisted on unfettered access to the company’s technology for all lawful purposes. 

During the hearing on Tuesday, Lin questioned if the DOD was punishing Anthropic for “acting stubbornly” in negotiations. The government’s lawyer Eric Hamilton said that the company was going beyond the normal scope of a contractor.

“Anthropic is not just acting stubbornly. It’s not just refusing to agree to contracting terms. Instead, it’s raising concerns to [DOD] about how [DOD] uses its technology in military missions,” Hamilton said. “What happens if anthropic installs a kill switch or functionality that changes how it functions? That is an unacceptable risk to [DOD].”

In February after Anthropic and the DOD failed to reach an agreement, Trump issued a Truth Social post ordering federal agencies to “immediately cease” all use of Anthropic’s technology.

“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.

WATCH: Anthropic sues Trump administration over Pentagon blacklisting

Israel’s Defense Forces said Wednesday that Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in a “targeted strike” in Tehran, marking the third assassination of a high-ranking official in just two days.

“Khatib played a significant role during the recent protests throughout Iran, including the arrest & killing of protestors and led terrorist activities against Israelis & Americans around the world,” the IDF said in a post on social media.

“Similarly, he operated against Iranian citizens during the Mahsa Amini protests (2022–2023),” they added.

Iran has not yet commented on reports of Khatib’s death.

It comes after Israel said Tuesday that Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani and the commander of Iran’s Basij forces, Gholamreza Soleimani, had both been killed. Iran’s official judiciary news agency later confirmed the killing of Soleimani, the Associated Press reported.

According to AP, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council released a statement confirming Larijani was killed “along with his son Morteza Larijani and the head of his office, Alireza Bayat, as well as several guards.”

The IDF said Khatib was appointed to his position in 2021 by Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in strikes aimed at high-ranking Iranian officials at the beginning of the war on Feb. 28.

Iran has since retaliated by attacking its Gulf neighbors and targeting ships trying to pass through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. and Israeli-led war against Iran entered its 19th day on Wednesday, with Israel launching a series of strikes on Lebanon’s capital of Beirut as it continues its offensive against Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Iran and its allied military groups have launched a series of retaliatory strikes across the Middle East, amplifying fears of a sprawling regional crisis.