In an unprecedented move, leading artificial intelligence firm Anthropic suspended access to its two most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, on Friday following a directive from the Trump administration barring foreign nationals from using the systems.
The company was forced to disable the models for every customer worldwide, just three days after opening access to Fable 5. It is believed to be the first time a major AI company has taken a publicly deployed model offline at the instruction of the U.S. government.
The Government’s National Security Directive
The directive, issued by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, came on Friday afternoon and cited national security concerns. According to Axios, an administration official stated that the Commerce Department acted after reports of a potential “jailbreak” — a method of bypassing the AI model’s safety guardrails — that could pose a cybersecurity threat.
The order required Anthropic to block all foreign nationals, including its own foreign-born employees, from using the models, effectively subjecting them to export controls. Since Anthropic could not selectively enforce the block in real-time across its cloud service, it made the decision to disable access for all users globally.
Anthropic’s Strong Rebuttal
Anthropic complied with the legal directive but strongly disagreed with the government’s reasoning. The company stated that it had only received “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” related to identifying minor software vulnerabilities.
“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,” the company said. The firm warned that applying this standard across the industry “would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers”.
Anthropic called the situation a “misunderstanding” and said it is working to restore access as soon as possible.
Fable 5 and Mythos 5: What Were They?
The two models represent Anthropic’s most advanced “Mythos-class” AI to date. Fable 5 was the public-facing version, equipped with guardrails to prevent misuse for cybersecurity and hacking tasks. Mythos 5, a more powerful version with fewer safeguards, was restricted to vetted partners as part of a government collaboration called Project Glasswing to identify software vulnerabilities.
A Strained Relationship with the White House
The shutdown is the latest escalation in ongoing tensions between Anthropic and the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” after the company refused to allow its technology to be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. Anthropic is currently suing the government over that designation.
President Trump recently signed an executive order creating a voluntary framework for federal vetting of advanced AI systems, but this directive appears to be a mandatory enforcement action.
Global Implications and Indian Context
The move has sparked significant debate about technological sovereignty. For India, which is the second-largest market for Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, the situation highlights the risks of relying on foreign-controlled AI infrastructure.
Indian AI experts have called the episode a “proof point” on why India should accelerate its own sovereign AI development under the IndiaAI mission. “We cannot rely on foreign models be it close or open source ones,” said Abhishek Upperwal, founder of Soket AI.
For now, all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 remains suspended, while other Anthropic models like Claude 4 remain operational.
