Anthropic suspended access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models for all customers on Friday after the U.S. government issued an export control directive citing national security authorities. The order followed government concerns about a jailbreak method for Fable 5, though Anthropic disputed the severity of the findings and said the technique revealed only minor, previously known vulnerabilities also discoverable in other publicly available models. The suspension occurred amid ongoing tensions between Anthropic and the U.S. administration, after the Defense Department previously labeled the company a supply chain risk and talks between the two sides broke down.
Commerce Department Issues Export Control Directive to Anthropic
The directive was issued by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick with input from officials at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, according to NBC News. The order covers "any foreign national, wherever located, inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees," Anthropic said in a statement. Compliance with the directive required turning off the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models entirely for all users. Anthropic stated there was no impact on access to all other Anthropic models.
Anthropic Disputes Jailbreak Severity and Calls for Access Restoration
Anthropic said the government's concern centered on a method to "jailbreak" Fable 5, but the company challenged the seriousness of the findings. Anthropic reviewed a demonstration showing the technique being used to surface "a small number of previously known, minor vulnerabilities" and claimed other publicly available models can be used to find the same issues without any bypass. The company said the government has only presented evidence so far for a narrow jailbreak that essentially asked the model to read a codebase and fix software flaws, a capability it said is "widely available from other models, including OpenAI's GPT-5.5" and routinely used by security teams. Anthropic said it disagreed with removing a commercially deployed model over a narrow finding and called the incident a likely "misunderstanding," saying it was working to restore access as soon as it could.
Defense Department Previously Designated Anthropic Supply Chain Risk
The suspension comes after a rocky relationship between Anthropic and Washington. Anthropic has sued the administration over the designation, which the Defense Department had previously labeled Anthropic a "supply chain risk" after talks between the two sides fell apart.
SpaceX Begins Trading on Same Day as Anthropic Suspension
The shutdown came on the same day SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. Shares opened at $150 after pricing at $135 in one of the biggest IPOs in history, and closed up 19% to $161, giving the company a value of nearly $1.77 trillion. Robert Greifeld, a former Nasdaq chief, told CNBC on Friday that he expected Anthropic and OpenAI to follow SpaceX to public markets this year.
Retail Traders Predict Anthropic IPO with Q2 2026 Profit Projections
Retail traders attributed the news to expectations of a possible future IPO listing for Anthropic, citing the company's projected first quarterly operating profit at roughly $10.9 billion in revenue and about $559 million in operating income for the second quarter of 2026, driven by growth in Claude and Claude Code. One trader described the view as a rotation call, with capital better placed ahead of an Anthropic listing than in SpaceX at current levels.
FAQ
What did Anthropic do on Friday?
Anthropic suspended access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models for all customers on Friday after the U.S. government issued an export control directive citing national security authorities.
Why did the US government order Anthropic to suspend the models?
The government's concern centered on a jailbreak method for Fable 5. Anthropic disputed the severity, saying the technique revealed only minor, previously known vulnerabilities also discoverable in other publicly available models.
What are retail traders predicting about Anthropic?
Retail traders predict a possible future IPO for Anthropic, citing projected first quarterly operating profit of roughly $10.9 billion in revenue and about $559 million in operating income for the second quarter of 2026, driven by Claude and Claude Code growth.
