US govt lifts export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5; What Anthropic said

AI giant Anthropic has announced that the US Department of Commerce has lifted the export controls on its advanced AI models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. This decision of the Trump administration ends weeks of tension between the company the government, which has ordered Anthropic to suspend access in mid-June citing ‘national security concerns’. In a post shared on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) Anthropic thanked its users. “We’ve received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. We'll begin restoring access tomorrow, and will share an update soon. We’re grateful to our users for their patience, and to everyone who worked with us on redeploying the models.”Government safeguards and accessAccording to a report by CNBC, the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also said in a letter to Anthropic that “appropriate safeguards” were now in place, allowing trusted partners—including select companies and federal agencies—to use the models. “Over the past two weeks, we have worked closely with Anthropic to analyze and approve Fable 5 to ensure alignment across the U.S. Government and strengthen America’s leadership in AI,” Lutnick wrote. The move follows concerns that restrictions on Anthropic’s rollout were giving Chinese open-source developers valuable time to catch up, as their models are proving nearly as capable and significantly cheaper.Behind-the-scenes negotiationsAnthropic had rushed to Washington after receiving the export control directive on June 12. Co-founder Tom Brown reportedly led negotiations with the administration, replacing CEO Dario Amodei, who has been a frequent critic of Trump’s AI policies and a supporter of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.The episode added to confusion in the AI industry, with executives uncertain about the administration’s regulatory approach, especially after the departure of David Sacks as crypto and AI czar earlier this year.AI regulation landscapeThe lifting of controls comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to take a more active role in AI regulation. Earlier in June, Trump signed an AI executive order asking developers to voluntarily submit models for government review before full release. Federal agencies were given 60 days to establish frameworks for assessing AI capabilities.Other companies, including OpenAI, have also complied with the request. On Friday, OpenAI announced three new models, including GPT-5.6, but limited rollout to a “small group of trusted partners.” The company cautioned that government access should not become the long-term default, warning it could restrict developers and global users from accessing the best tools.Claude Fable 5 will be available again globallyAnthropic has also announced that Fable 5 will be available for users starting tomorrow (July 2). “After a series of productive conversations with the US government, we're redeploying the model with a new set of classifiers to target and block more cybersecurity tasks. In the near term, some routine tasks like coding and debugging will fall back to Opus 4.8. We’ll continue to refine these classifiers over the coming weeks to reduce false positives and better distinguish genuine misuse from legitimate requests.We’ve also begun drafting a consensus framework—with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other Glasswing partners—for assessing the severity of AI jailbreaks and how AI developers should respond to them. We invite other industry partners and model providers to join us in this effort.Finally, we’re scaling up our collaboration with the US government on model testing and safeguards. This will include pre-release access to models and safeguards for evaluation, information sharing on jailbreaks and misuse, and dedicated resources for joint research.Thank you to our users for your patience, and to our partners across the government, industry, and the research community who worked alongside us to make Fable 5 available again,” wrote Anthropic on X.Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.