Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, had two of its newest models yanked offline after the US Commerce Department issued an emergency export-control directive. Now the startup is trying to negotiate its way back to normal.
The directive, received by Anthropic at 5:21 p.m. ET on June 12, 2026, prohibited the distribution of its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models to any foreign nationals. That includes non-citizens physically located inside the United States. Anthropic responded by doing the only thing it could: shutting down access to both models for everyone, globally, effective immediately.
What happened and why it matters
The government’s stated rationale centers on a narrow jailbreak technique that allegedly posed risks to Mythos 5’s cybersecurity features. Anthropic has called the directive a misunderstanding and is actively in discussions with the government to restore access as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, its Claude models remain fully operational and unaffected by the order.
Anthropic had confidentially filed for a public listing projected at a $96.5 billion valuation prior to this incident.
