For nearly three weeks, two of the most powerful AI systems on the planet went dark. Not because of a technical glitch, not because of a safety incident, but because the US government told Anthropic to pull the plug.
Fable 5 returned to global availability on July 1, 2026, after a suspension that began on June 12 when a US export-control directive forced Anthropic to cut off access for foreign nationals. Mythos 5, the company’s other flagship model, came back even more restricted: only vetted US organizations got the green light, and that didn’t happen until June 26.
What actually happened
On June 12, the US government issued an order targeting Anthropic’s two crown jewels. The directive was aimed at limiting foreign nationals’ access to advanced AI capabilities.
The result was a global shutdown of both Fable 5 and Mythos 5. What followed was roughly three weeks of what Anthropic diplomatically described as “productive conversations” with the US government.
