Anthropic to meet with Trump administration over Mythos dispute
Senior Anthropic staff are meeting with Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., on Monday to try to resolve the AI company’s latest high-profile dispute with the U.S. government, according to a source close to the company.
Anthropic received an export control directive on Friday citing “national security authorities” and ordering the company to suspend access by “any foreign national within or outside the United States” to its latest AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. a statement.
The AI startup has disabled access to the models for all its customers to ensure compliance with the directive.
The unexpected action marks the latest wrinkle in Anthropic’s relationship with the government, which has become strained following an escalating conflict with the Ministry of Defense earlier this year. The Department of Defense labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March and banned defense contractors from using the company’s technology, claiming it threatened U.S. national security.
Defense Minister Pete Hegseth addressed the government’s latest directive a post on x Writing “day by day” on Saturday proves why blacklisting Anthropic was “the right move.”
Anthropic sued the Trump administration to reverse its definition of supply chain risk, and that lawsuit is ongoing.
Anthropic unveiled Fable 5 and Mythos 5 on Tuesday, just days before receiving the export control directive from the government. The company worked with government agencies to test the models before they were released and received approval to distribute them, according to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named to discuss confidential matters.
The person said the government called Anthropic at 1 p.m. ET on Friday and instructed the company to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 due to an unspecified national security threat. Anthropic received an official letter around 5:30 p.m. requiring the company to suspend the models.
The person said Anthropic had not received any communications regarding the national security threat before the directive came down on Friday.
Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are based on Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview, a powerful model that excels at identifying vulnerabilities in software. Anthropic has limited its 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 has held several meetings with the company about the model’s capabilities.
Anthropic has touted Fable 5 and Mythos 5 as cutting-edge models that rank at the top of many industry benchmarks. Mythos 5 is still limited to a select group of users, but Anthropic has made Fable 5 available to its enterprise customers and paid subscribers. The company said the wide-scale release was possible due to new security measures that prevent interference in certain high-risk areas, including cybersecurity and biology.
In its statement on Friday, Anthropic said it believed the government’s concern was about a “potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” in which the user could bypass the cybersecurity guardrail and ask Fable 5 to “read a specific code base and fix any software flaws.”
“We disagree with the idea that a small finding of potential jailbreak should be a reason to recall a commercial model that has been applied to hundreds of millions of people,” Anthropic said. “If this standard were implemented industry-wide, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all lead model providers.”
Anthropic called the dispute a “misunderstanding” and said it was working to restore access to the models “as soon as possible.”
WRISTWATCH: Anthropic disables new Mythos-class models days after launch in response to government directive
