The US government’s export control order blocking foreign access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models has drawn in Amazon, the White House, and a debate about where AI regulation goes next.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was among the technology executives who raised national security concerns about Anthropic’s most advanced AI models with senior Trump administration officials this week, according to a person familiar with the matter — a disclosure that adds a significant new dimension to the events that led to one of the most dramatic shutdowns in the short history of commercial AI.
On Friday, Anthropic disabled global access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after the US government issued an export control directive blocking any foreign national — whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic’s own employees — from using them. The company said it received the directive at 5:21 pm ET and complied, while publicly disagreeing with the government’s reasoning.
The San Francisco-based startup, which has confidentially filed for a US initial public offering, had previously flagged the hacking capabilities of its Mythos model and held it back from wide release. Earlier this week, it rolled out a public version called Fable, with what it described as cybersecurity safeguards in place. That release lasted less than a week.
The government’s stated concern was a potential method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” Fable’s safeguards — specifically, a technique that could be used to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Anthropic pushed back, saying the bypass revealed only minor flaws already discoverable by other publicly available models, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, and that no universal jailbreak had been demonstrated.
Amazon did not confirm whether Jassy spoke directly to government officials about the models. “As a leading cloud provider that serves a large number of private and public sector customers, it’s not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel on potential security risks,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “When they occur, we don’t share the details of these discussions.” Amazon is one of Anthropic’s largest investors.
The export control was issued by the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which did not respond to a request for comment. White House adviser David Sacks said officials acted “reluctantly” after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei “refused” to fix the jailbreak or take the model offline. “The administration’s hope now is that Anthropic remediates the safety issue, the export control is lifted, and Fable goes back into general release,” Sacks wrote on social media Saturday.
The administration also signaled, through a US official cited by The Information, that it was unlikely to impose similar restrictions on other AI firms — though Reuters could not immediately verify those plans.
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The order has drawn criticism from experts who support AI export controls but found the scope of this one difficult to justify. “This was not well thought-out,” said Jimmy Goodrich, a senior fellow at the University of California’s Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation. “It even bans Canadians and Brits employed at Anthropic from doing research and development.”
The intervention came at a delicate moment. A previous dispute between the Trump administration and Anthropic had only recently shown signs of easing — just days before Friday’s shutdown order arrived.
