Commerce Department bars Anthropic from distributing Fable 5 and Mythos 5 to foreign nationals after company declines to fix jailbreak

The Commerce Department on Friday evening used national security export controls to bar Anthropic from distributing its Fable 5 model and the underlying Mythos 5 model to foreign nationals. The category includes people outside the United States and non-citizens working inside the country, including Anthropic employees. Given the scope of the order, Anthropic disabled both models for all users.

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy first raised concerns about the model with senior Trump administration officials on Thursday. Amazon researchers had used a series of prompts to obtain information about cyberattacks from the Mythos-class model that was supposed to be restricted.

An unnamed source familiar with Amazon’s discussions told Politico that the government had asked Amazon for feedback on the new Anthropic model.

An Amazon spokesperson told Fortune that governments sometimes seek the company’s counsel on potential security risks and that Amazon does not share details of those discussions. U.S. government suspected a Chinese-linked group had already used the jailbreak Amazon discovered.

An Anthropic spokesperson told Semafor that the White House did not raise Chinese access to Mythos in its conversations with the company and that Anthropic prohibits access to its products from within China. Several calls followed between Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and senior administration officials.

Amodei argued that the security bypass found by Amazon was narrow rather than a full jailbreak.

A source familiar with Anthropic told Fortune that the company was given 90 minutes to pull its newest model and received no previous communication of a national security threat. , to meet with White House officials.