Battle Between Anthropic and Trump Administration Over Claude Latest Models

While the United States reveled in its first soccer World Cup victory and the New York Knicks' NBA championship triumph, AI startup Anthropic found itself caught in tense negotiations with the government. A single notification the company received transformed the entire weekend.

At 5:21 PM on Friday, Anthropic received a directive from the Trump administration based on U.S. export control regulations. The directive ordered the company to halt access to its latest AI models 'Mythos 5' and 'Fable 5' to all foreign nationals, both within and outside the United States. Remarkably, the restriction even extended to foreign-born employees of Anthropic itself.

The severity of the problem Anthropic faced was unmistakable. To comply with the directive, the company would have no choice but to effectively shut down the flagship products it had been heavily promoting throughout the previous week. In response to this situation, the company rushed to Washington D.C. and sought a change in policy by directly appealing to President Trump.

This move represents a symbolic event demonstrating the rapid hardening of the U.S. government's stance on AI development. While the Biden administration had already strengthened export controls on advanced AI technology, the Trump administration has gone further, shifting toward imposing restrictions even on foreign-born employees of domestic companies. The AI development sector heavily relies on international talent, and if such regulations are applied broadly, they could have devastating consequences for the entire AI industry in Silicon Valley.

For Anthropic, the timing was particularly devastating. Mythos 5 and Fable 5 were positioned as strategic assets demonstrating the company's competitive strength, and amid fierce competition with OpenAI and Google, a shutdown immediately after release could damage not only business operations but also shake the confidence of customers and investors.

While the outcome of negotiations spanning the weekend remained pending at the time of writing, this case highlights the structural challenge facing the entire industry regarding how AI companies should confront government regulation as a new risk. Going forward, discussions about restrictions on hiring foreign-born talent and the scope of export regulations are expected to become a major focus of AI policy.