Musk Backs Anthropic's Ban on Cruelty to AI Models Amid Growing Debate Over Machine Consciousness

Elon Musk has endorsed Anthropic's controversial decision to prohibit sustained cruelty toward its Claude AI models, marking an unusual moment of agreement between competing AI companies on the question of machine welfare. Anthropic announced in early October 2026 that it would update its usage policy effective November 12 to ban "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior" toward Claude, the first major AI lab to write such protections into its terms of service.