The U.S. Commerce Department told Anthropic on Friday that export controls on Mythos would be relaxed, easing a restriction that had forced the company to disable the model for all users for two weeks. The move marked a sharp turn for a model that had been caught up in a rare government action against a frontier AI system.
It also explains why Fable 5 is drawing attention now. Anthropic had been hit with export controls on Fable two weeks earlier after a jailbreak was discovered that could let users get around guardrails built to block access to Mythos’ full cyber capabilities. The company then found itself under a ban that did not just limit a niche tool. It cut off all users from Mythos entirely.
That reversal lands in the middle of a broader fight between Anthropic and the Trump administration. The company has had a rougher ride in Trump’s Washington than OpenAI, and the clashes have been public and blunt. Donald Trump posted that Anthropic was made up of leftwing nut jobs trying to strong-arm the Department of War. Emil Michael wrote on X that it is a shame that Dario Amodei is a liar and has a God-complex. Pete Hegseth called Amodei an ideological lunatic during an April Congressional hearing, while David Sacks accused the company of running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy and of backing a plan to backdoor Woke AI and other AI regulations.
The friction has not stayed in public statements. In April, the Pentagon labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk after the company refused to accept contract language the Pentagon was insisting upon. Then came the broader dispute over access and cooperation, with anonymous senior U.S. officials saying Amodei was refusing to make himself available when the White House called. Anthropic disputed that account and said Amodei was on the phone with the administration within an hour and fifteen minutes of the White House calling.
What the Friday relaxation actually changes is still unclear. The Commerce Department did not spell out the exact terms, and it is not yet confirmed whether the move fully restores access to Mythos or leaves new conditions in place. But the immediate consequence is plain enough: a model that had been switched off for every user is back on a path toward wider use, and Anthropic is entering its IPO months with government scrutiny still hanging over it.
