The US Commerce Department issued an export control directive to Anthropic on June 12, 2026, citing national security and ordering that access to its top-tier Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models be cut off for foreign nationals. To comply, Anthropic immediately suspended both models for all users, including customers inside the United States.
June 12, 2026 · US Commerce Department Directive
US Government Forces Anthropic to Shut Down Its Most Advanced AI Models
Citing national security, an export-control letter ordered an immediate halt to foreign-national access to "Claude Fable 5" and "Mythos 5." That same evening, Anthropic disabled both models — for every user, including in the US .
1st
Time the US has fully halted global foreign-national access to a domestic commercial frontier AI model
1
Jailbreak found just after launch triggered the government's concern
ALL
Users cut off — including US customers — within hours; other Claude models unaffected
Sequence of a 24-hour shutdown
From general availability to fully disabled
JUN 9
Fable 5 goes generally available — first Mythos-class model
→
JUN 12 · LETTER
Commerce orders immediate halt to foreign-national access
→
JUN 12 · EVENING
Anthropic disables both models for all users
The models that got pulled were benchmark leaders
SWE-Bench Pro — agentic coding accuracy (%)
FrontierCode (Diamond)
29.3% vs 13.4% / 5.7%
Humanity's Last Exam
59.0% vs 49.8%
Terminal-Bench 2.1
88.0% vs 82.7%
The criticism
A full shutdown over a single jailbreak is excessive
Could open the door to the rise of Chinese models
Directive came with almost no explanation or technical basis
Anthropic's response
Will follow the legal directive, but objects to the opaque process
Comparable models are already public from other firms
In talks with officials, aiming for early restoration
Why it matters
A security-first reversal — and a warning to Silicon Valley. Where past curbs targeted chips and firms like Nvidia, this is the first time Washington has ordered an immediate, global shutdown of an entire commercial frontier AI model.
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