Overview
- The Commerce Department forced Anthropic to suspend access to its most powerful models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, on June 12 after regulators said they found gaps in the models' safety guardrails.
- After negotiations, Anthropic regained limited access for a small group of U.S. cyber defenders and infrastructure operators before the full restrictions were reviewed.
- On June 30 the Commerce Department lifted its export controls after Anthropic committed in a public letter from Secretary Howard Lutnick to proactively detect and mitigate security risks and to work with government protocols, with the U.S. reserving the right to reimpose limits.
- Rivals and vendors adapted quickly: OpenAI released GPT-5.6 in very limited form under government client-by-client validation, and Anthropic said it will work with Amazon, Microsoft and Google on a common framework to rate the severity of AI security flaws.
- The episode has intensified calls for digital sovereignty in Europe, prompted France to pledge €655 million for AI, and left uncertainty over whether foreign state partners will regain access to Anthropic's models.