Anthropic disabled its two most powerful artificial intelligence models on Friday to comply with a United States government order blocking their use by any foreign national.
According to Anthropic, the Trump Administration cited national security concerns when it issued an export-control directive on Friday that called for suspending all access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models by any foreign national, including Anthropic’s own employees.
The company said in a statement that it had to “abruptly disable” access to the models for all customers to comply with the order. Users reported being unable to access the models on Saturday.
“We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible,” the statement said.
The U.S. government has used export controls in the past to restrict the sale of semiconductor chips that power AI models, but never on the models themselves. The order marks a significant escalation in its efforts to prevent foreign adversaries from using American-made AI technology, and shows that it increasingly views the models as a national security asset.
It also comes amid a dispute between Anthropic and the Trump Administration, which began when the company refused to allow the U.S. military to use its AI models for fully autonomous weapons systems. The Pentagon placed Anthropic on a blacklist as a result, deeming it too dangerous for government use. With these export controls, it has now also been deemed too dangerous for foreign use.
Anthropic said it had received notification on Friday that the government had become aware of a method of “jailbreaking” Fable 5. In its statement, Anthropic said it had received only verbal notice of a “potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” from the government and disagreed that it should be grounds for a recall.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
