Anthropic Says Export Controls Lifted on Claude Fable 5, Mythos 5

Anthropic said Tuesday that the U.S. Commerce Department lifted export controls on its Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, ending a two-week standoff that had locked the models behind a government directive.

The company disabled access to both models earlier this month to comply with a Commerce Department order citing national security authorities. The directive required Anthropic to suspend access for any foreign national regardless of location, including the company's own foreign national employees.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week gave Anthropic permission to release Mythos 5 to a select group of companies and federal agencies. In a letter viewed by CNBC, Lutnick said he had determined that appropriate safeguards were in place for certain trusted partners to access the model.

Anthropic said it will begin restoring access to Fable 5 on Wednesday. The company thanked users for their patience in a post on X.

The Commerce Department's initial crackdown on Anthropic coincided with a rapid rise in Chinese open-source models that are proving nearly as capable and significantly cheaper than some of the most powerful U.S. models. Several tech executives and investors warned during the restriction period that Chinese developers were gaining valuable lead time in their effort to catch U.S. frontier AI.

Lutnick wrote on Tuesday that his team had worked closely with Anthropic over the past two weeks to analyze and approve Fable 5, aiming to align the rollout across the U.S. government and strengthen America's AI leadership.