The Trump administration has imposed sweeping export controls on the AI company Anthropic after a frantic 24-hour period where senior officials attempted to convince the company to pull their latest model, Fable 5, voluntarily over what they described as significant national security risks. Per POLITICO, the administration’s decision highlights the complex, real-time struggle the White House faces while trying to regulate rapidly evolving and potentially dangerous AI technologies.
As soon as Fable 5 was released to the public, top administration officials quickly developed concerns that the system’s guardrails were not as robust as the company had initially claimed. Then, on Thursday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reached out to the White House to raise concerns about the ability to bypass the model’s safety guardrails. Amazon, which is an investor in Anthropic, was reportedly providing feedback following a request from the administration.
By Friday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles held a meeting to determine the administration’s response. Following this, officials reportedly attempted to reach Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. A person close to the company told POLITICO that Amodei was on the phone with senior officials within 75 minutes of the initial request.
Anthropic firmly disagrees with their analysis
The outlet reported that Amodei participated in three separate sessions with roughly half a dozen senior officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Amodei argued that the security concerns were based on a misunderstanding. He defended the guardrails and pushed back on the idea that the specific bypass identified posed a systemic risk similar to a broader “jailbreak.”
In a blog post published after the controls were enacted, Anthropic stated that “no testers have yet been able to find a universal jailbreak — a jailbreak method that can very broadly bypass the model’s safeguards, unblocking a wide range of cyber capabilities.” The company further defended its systems, noting they “are so strong that many users have complained that they are overly broad.”
Despite these arguments, the administration remained unmoved. A senior White House official stated that Amazon’s findings were verified by the National Security Agency, providing the government with what they considered “proof.”
During the discussions, Secretary Bessent reportedly told Amodei that he was making a “bad decision” by not pulling the model voluntarily. Shortly after, the administration officially imposed export controls, which effectively disabled the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all customers to ensure compliance.
According to POLITICO, a senior White House official remarked, “Export controls were a last resort after begging them for hours to work with us. This was not something we wanted to do, but our hands were tied.” However, this account is disputed by sources close to Anthropic, who claimed the White House provided a 90-minute deadline to pull the models without offering specific details on the actual threat.
CNN reported that Anthropic confirmed it had disabled customer access to the models following the government order. The company stated that the directive cited national security issues, though it maintained that the specific “jailbreak” technique identified only allowed for the discovery of minor, previously known vulnerabilities. Anthropic argued that if such a standard were applied consistently, it would halt all new model deployments for all frontier providers.
Per reports, the relationship between the Trump administration and Anthropic has been historically strained. Earlier this year, the administration designated the company a “supply chain risk” after Anthropic reportedly refused to allow its tools to be used for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. It was a move that prompted Rep. Elizabeth Warren to state the administration was ‘extorting’ Anthropic.
The company subsequently sued the government over that designation. Despite this, CNN notes that the White House has maintained consistent communication with the company, and Anthropic was even involved in drafting recent executive orders regarding AI regulation.
In a post on X, David Sacks, the former White House AI czar, expressed support for the administration’s current move. He noted that the administration is “frankly bewildered that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to comply with safety requests that it previously said were its highest priority.”
Sacks added that the administration hopes Anthropic will remediate the issues so that the export controls can be lifted and the model can eventually return to general release.
Published: Jun 15, 2026 05:50 pm