Senior Anthropic staffers are meeting with Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., on Monday to resolve a dispute over the company's latest AI models, according to a source close to the company. Anthropic received an export control directive on Friday that cited national security authorities and ordered the company to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States. The AI startup disabled access to the models for all customers to ensure compliance with the directive. The action marks the latest strain in Anthropic's relationship with the government, which has been tense after a clash with the Department of Defense escalated earlier this year when the DOD labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March.
Government Issues Export Control Directive on Friday
The government called Anthropic at 1:00 p.m. ET on Friday and instructed the company to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 because of an unspecified national security threat, according to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential matters. Anthropic received a formal letter around 5:30 p.m. ET that required the company to suspend the models. Before the directive landed on Friday, Anthropic received no communication about a national security threat, the person said.
In its statement on Friday, Anthropic said it believes the government's concern is around a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, where a user could bypass a cybersecurity guardrail and ask Fable 5 to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws.
DOD Labeled Anthropic Supply Chain Risk in March
The Department of Defense labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, which banned defense contractors from using the company's technology because it purportedly threatens U.S. national security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the government's latest directive in a post on X on Saturday, writing that every passing day proves why blacklisting Anthropic was the right move.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse the supply chain risk designation, and that litigation is ongoing.
Anthropic Received Pre-Release Approval for Models
Anthropic unveiled Fable 5 and Mythos 5 on Tuesday, just days before it received the export control directive from the government. The company worked with government agencies to test the models ahead of the release and received approval to deploy them, according to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named in order to discuss confidential matters.
Fable 5 and Mythos 5 build on Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview, a powerful model 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, and its approach appeared to earn it some goodwill from the Trump administration, which held several meetings with the company about the model's capabilities.
Anthropic touted Fable 5 and Mythos 5 as state-of-the-art models that top many industry benchmarks. Mythos 5 is 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.
Company Disputes Narrow Jailbreak Concern
Anthropic said it disagrees that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. The company stated: "If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers."
Anthropic said it believes the dispute is a misunderstanding and that it is working to restore access as soon as possible.
FAQ
What did Anthropic do on Friday in response to the government directive?
Anthropic disabled access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models for all customers on Friday after receiving an export control directive from the government that cited national security authorities and ordered the company to suspend access by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States.
Why did the Department of Defense label Anthropic a supply chain risk?
The DOD labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, which banned defense contractors from using the company's technology because it purportedly threatens U.S. national security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X on Saturday that every passing day proves why blacklisting Anthropic was the right move.
How does Anthropic characterize the government's concern about Fable 5?
Anthropic said in its statement on Friday that it believes the government's concern is around a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, where a user could bypass a cybersecurity guardrail and ask Fable 5 to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws. The company called the dispute a misunderstanding and stated it is working to restore access as soon as possible.
