Trump Admin Forces Anthropic to Shut Down Fable 5 and Mythos 5
In an unprecedented escalation of the ongoing feud between the Trump administration and AI company Anthropic, the U.S. Commerce Department issued an export control directive on Friday, June 12, ordering Anthropic to suspend all access to its two most advanced AI models — Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 — by any foreign national. Anthropic complied by abruptly disabling the models for all customers worldwide, while publicly disputing the government’s rationale.
The Directive
The Commerce Department, led by Secretary Howard Lutnick, sent the directive to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on the evening of Friday, June 12, citing national security concerns. According to Anthropic’s official statement, the government believes it has identified a method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” Fable 5’s safeguards — potentially allowing the model to be used for identifying software vulnerabilities.
Anthropic stated that it had only received “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” and that the vulnerabilities identified were “minor” and “relatively simple.” The company noted that other publicly available models, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, have similar capabilities without requiring a bypass.
Global Impact
Because the directive applies to all foreign nationals — including foreign national Anthropic employees — the company said the only way to ensure compliance was to disable access for everyone. As Ars Technica reported, this meant that all customers worldwide lost access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, not just those outside the United States. Access to other Anthropic models was not affected.
“We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users,” Anthropic wrote. “However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.”
Background: A Deepening Feud
The directive is the latest and most dramatic escalation in a conflict that began earlier in 2026. The relationship ruptured after Anthropic refused to allow the U.S. military to use its AI models for mass surveillance of American citizens and fully autonomous weapons systems. In response, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” — a label typically reserved for companies from adversary nations — effectively barring the company from federal contracts.
Anthropic filed a lawsuit to block the Pentagon ban, and CEO Dario Amodei visited the White House in April for a high-stakes meeting. Meanwhile, rival OpenAI signed a Pentagon deal for classified AI deployment, agreeing to the same safety red lines that Anthropic had been punished for demanding.
Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order urging AI model makers to submit to voluntary government security testing, though the order was non-binding and described by experts as a “norm-setting event.”
A Watershed Moment for AI Regulation
This marks the first time the U.S. has used export controls to restrict access to AI models themselves, rather than the semiconductor chips that power them. The precedent is significant: it demonstrates that the U.S. can unilaterally cut off foreign access to frontier AI capabilities.
Anton Leicht, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told TIME that the move “shows how irrelevant most other countries have become to AI policy.” He added: “The U.S. is so far ahead in the AI race already that it can afford to leave other countries behind as an afterthought of a domestic decision.”
Kanishka Narayan, the UK Minister for AI and Online Safety, commented on X that “the main lesson: as we debate the future of national security and technological sovereignty, access to AI capabilities is crucial.”
IPO Implications
The timing of the government action is particularly significant. Anthropic confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO in May 2026, with reports suggesting a valuation around $965 billion. The directive came just days after Anthropic launched its flagship Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, and on the same day that AI rival SpaceX launched its own IPO, becoming the sixth-most-valuable public company in the U.S. with a $2.1 trillion market cap.
Kirsten Davies, the Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer, posted on X: “Some things are simply more important than revenue cycles, clickbait and pre-IPO valuation. America First. Always.”
What’s Next
Anthropic has promised to release more details about the situation within 24 hours of its June 12 statement. The company maintains that this is a “misunderstanding” and is working to restore access as soon as possible. However, the broader questions remain: Will the administration’s action face legal challenges? How will this affect Anthropic’s IPO prospects? And will other AI companies face similar restrictions?
The outcome of this confrontation could set precedents for how frontier AI models are regulated, deployed, and controlled globally — not just in the United States, but for every nation that depends on access to American AI technology.