The Trump administration pulled the plug on two of Anthropic’s most powerful AI models last week, and now Congress wants to know why.
On June 18, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, including Representatives Sam Liccardo, Ted Lieu, and Jay Obernolte, sent a letter demanding the administration explain the rationale behind an export control directive that restricted access to Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models. The directive, issued around June 12-13, ordered Anthropic to block access for all foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. The models didn’t just go dark for foreign users. They went offline for everyone.
A pattern, not an incident
This is the second time this year the Trump administration has directly intervened in Anthropic’s business operations. Back on February 27, a separate directive instructed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology entirely, stemming from disputes over the company’s stance on military applications of its AI.
The company is valued at approximately $1 trillion. That’s not a scrappy startup getting caught in regulatory crossfire. That’s one of the most valuable private technology companies on Earth being told, twice in four months, that its products are either too dangerous to export or too restrictive for military use.
