It’s been two weeks since Anthropic took its Mythos-class models offline after a Friday evening ultimatum from the Trump administration. The company sent a barrage of executives to Washington, DC. But updates have been suspiciously lacking, with no resolution in sight.
Anthropic declined to comment multiple times this week, saying there was no news to share. But the lack of news is the story. After 14 days of high-intensity negotiations, nobody knows when or if Anthropic’s most powerful AI models will come back — or whether President Trump could expand his order to other companies.
The administration’s June 12th export control order demanded Anthropic suspend access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 by any foreign national due to security concerns. The trigger: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reportedly flagged a method for seemingly breaking Fable 5’s guardrails. Katie Moussouris of Luta Security reviewed the report and called it significantly overblown, arguing the capability in question is essential for defensive security work.
The consequences are serious. Anthropic was seen as the rare AI company with a path to profitability, with Mythos models selling at double the cost of its lower-tier offerings ahead of an upcoming IPO. Now its two largest shareholders — Google and Amazon — are likely not happy. Meanwhile, countries are calling for non-American AI alternatives, and competitors like OpenAI face similar scrutiny, with the Trump administration reportedly asking OpenAI to delay GPT-5.6 over security concerns.
Cybersecurity leaders have come together to say if regulation has to happen, this isn’t the way to do it. Every day without resolution, China pulls further ahead in the AI race.
