Anthropic received an export control directive late Friday ordering the company to suspend access to its latest Claude models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, by any foreign national whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The Trump administration cited national security authorities but did not specify its concern, according to Anthropic. The directive landed just days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay advocating for more serious and binding regulation of AI, including the ability to block models if they are deemed unsafe. The Wall Street Journal reported the move was prompted by conversations Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in which Jassy said Amazon researchers used prompts to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could aid cyberattacks. The company, now valued at close to $1 trillion, has spent years touting its dedication to safety but has found itself caught in the Trump administration's crosshairs for the second time this year.
Trump Administration Issues Export Control Directive on National Security Grounds
The directive arrived approximately 10 days after President Donald Trump signed an AI executive order that asked companies on a voluntary basis to provide models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release. The order also gave administration officials 60 days to develop and maintain the relevant review frameworks for AI companies to consider. There is no indication that the forced suspension of Anthropic's latest models was tied to the executive order.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told the administration that Amazon researchers used a series of prompts to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could aid cyberattacks. The company lauded Trump's AI executive order signed earlier this month as an "important step."
Anthropic said in response that it disagreed that the Trump administration's finding was cause for a recall and characterized the disruption as a "misunderstanding." In a blog post, the company stated: "As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles."
Daniel Remler, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told CNBC: "This sure looks mandatory if there are going to be consequences for not doing what the government says." He added: "To go from an environment in which we had no controls on model access at all to basically using this tool to take down one company's model in a few short hours is pretty remarkable."
Anthropic Executives Meet with Trump Administration Officials
Senior Anthropic employees flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of the Trump administration on Monday. The company told CNBC that "both parties are working quickly to get this resolved." Anthropic has not said when it expects its models to come back online.
According to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential matters, Anthropic worked with government agencies to test the models ahead of the release and received approval to deploy them. There was no communication from the government of a national security threat, the person said.
Fable 5 and Mythos 5 built on the April release of Claude Mythos Preview, a powerful offering that excels at identifying security vulnerabilities within software. Anthropic limited the rollout to a select group of companies as part of a cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing. Mythos 5 was still limited to a select group of users, but Anthropic made Fable 5 available to its enterprise customers and paid subscribers. The company said the broad release was possible because of new safeguards that block responses in specific high-risk areas, including cybersecurity and biology.
Industry Leaders Submit Open Letter Requesting Directive Reversal
Alex Stamos, chief product officer at Corridor and the former security chief at Facebook, penned an open letter on "transparent AI cyber protections," addressed to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross. The letter, signed by more than 150 executives and technical leaders, asks for the export control directive to be lifted.
Stamos told CNBC in an interview that rules need to be "based upon science." He stated: "Those rules need to be written down and transparent. That has not happened. There's nothing that Anthropic or anybody else can look at to say what can and can't I do." He added that for every American company, "the fear is that at any moment you can now, if you run afoul of the administration, be shut down for a completely arbitrary decision capriciously."
David Sacks, a venture capitalist who formerly served as Trump's AI and crypto czar, wrote on X that the "minimizing language" in the company's blog post is not in line with its brand as "the AI safety company." Sacks stated: "The Admin values Anthropic's technical capabilities and feels that this issue, while serious, should be easily resolved. The ball is in Anthropic's court."
Department of Defense Supply Chain Risk Designation Remains Under Litigation
Earlier this year, Anthropic engaged in a high-profile dispute with the Department of Defense. The DOD declared Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, a designation that requires defense contractors to certify that they will not use Claude models in their work with the military. Anthropic sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse the supply chain risk designation. That litigation is ongoing.
In a post on X on Saturday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the government's latest directive, writing that "every passing day" proves why blacklisting Anthropic was "the right move."
The company and its chief rival, OpenAI, both confidentially filed their IPO prospectuses recently, setting up potentially historic share sales for investors eager to jump into AI.
FAQ
What did the Trump administration order Anthropic to do late Friday?
The Trump administration issued an export control directive late Friday ordering Anthropic to suspend access to its latest Claude models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, by any foreign national whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The administration cited national security authorities but did not specify its concern, according to Anthropic.
Why did the Trump administration issue the export control directive against Anthropic?
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, the move was prompted by conversations Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Jassy told the administration that Amazon researchers used a series of prompts to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could aid cyberattacks. The Trump administration cited national security authorities but did not specify its concern.
What is Anthropic doing to resolve the export control directive?
Senior Anthropic employees flew to Washington, D.C., to meet with members of the Trump administration on Monday. The company told CNBC that "both parties are working quickly to get this resolved." Anthropic has not said when it expects its models to come back online.
