At 5:21pm Eastern Time on 12 June, Anthropic received an export control directive from the US government, citing national security authorities, ordering the suspension of all access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic's own foreign-born employees.
Unable to selectively enforce such a broad restriction in real time, Anthropic disabled both models for all customers globally, while confirming that all other Claude models remain unaffected.
The directive offered no specific detail on the underlying national security rationale. Officials indicated the decision followed the discovery of a technique to bypass Fable 5's safety guardrails, the same guardrails designed to prevent users accessing the advanced cybersecurity capabilities of Mythos 5, the underlying model on which Fable 5 is built.
Anthropic pushed back. The company said it reviewed what it believes to be the report behind the government's action and concluded that the level of capability demonstrated is already available from other publicly deployed models, including OpenAI's GPT-5.5, and is routinely used by cybersecurity defenders.
The timing is awkward. The shutdown came weeks after Anthropic disclosed a revenue run rate of $47 billion and closed a funding round valuing it at $965 billion, with a confidential IPO prospectus already filed with the SEC. Analysts expect the export control action to unsettle investors, raising questions about whether the company can remain at the cutting edge of AI development if its models remain subject to government restriction.
Anthropic said it believes the situation is a misunderstanding and is working to restore access.
