U.S. lifts export controls on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5

The U.S. Department of Commerce lifted export controls on Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5, ending an 18-day dispute that had forced Anthropic to cut off access to its two most advanced models. Anthropic said it would begin restoring access to Fable 5 on Wednesday after receiving notice Tuesday evening.

Anthropic disabled both models in mid-June after a June 12 export-control directive from the U.S. government cited national security authorities. The company said the directive required it to suspend access for any foreign national, including foreign-national Anthropic employees, whether inside or outside the United States. That restriction set off a standoff between Anthropic and the Trump administration as the company negotiated over how the models could be used without violating the government order.

The Commerce Department first eased the pressure on June 26, when Howard Lutnick allowed Mythos 5 to be used by more than 100 trusted U.S. companies and federal agencies, including organizations that operate and defend critical infrastructure. Anthropic said the broader rollback on June 30 cleared the way to restore Fable 5 and continue expanding access to Mythos 5. The company said it remained in talks with the government over a standardized framework for evaluating suspected security bypasses in future disputes.

The episode exposed how aggressively Washington is willing to intervene in advanced AI deployment when national security concerns are raised. Tech executives and investors argued that the shutdown could hand Chinese open-source developers a valuable head start, while OpenAI chief Sam Altman criticized the idea of the government choosing which customers could reach top models. John Coleman of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the vetting process lacked transparency and concentrated too much power in government hands.

Lutnick defended the approach, saying his office had worked closely with Anthropic over the prior two weeks to analyze and approve Fable 5 in order to strengthen U.S. leadership in AI. Anthropic said it was grateful to users and to everyone involved in redeploying the models, but the larger precedent now reaches beyond one company: the federal government has shown it is prepared to set temporary limits on frontier AI systems, then relax them selectively, when officials believe security risks warrant it.