Thaw In US-Anthropic Standoff: After Mythos, Fable 5 Reactivation On The Cards

The US is likely to allow Anthropic to reactivate access to its powerful Fable 5 artificial intelligence model, Axios reported.

The Axios report comes a day after the Trump administration on Friday allowed Anthropic to release its Mythos 5 model to a select group of companies and federal agencies.

The decision to allow a limited release of Mythos was shared in a letter sent by Commerce Department to Anthropic, CNBC reported.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in the letter that the company “has worked with the US government to address risks associated with” Mythos 5 and Fable 5.
“These efforts have yielded significant progress. In addition, Anthropic has committed to work with the US government on protocols and standards and releases,” Lutnick’s letter mentions.

The developments are seen as a major progress in the negotiations between Anthropic and the US administration following a two-week stand-off triggered by a directive to end access to its artificial intelligence models to foreigners.

The Trump administration on Friday directed OpenAI to limit the initial release of its upcoming GPT-5.6 artificial intelligence model to a small group of government-approved partners over security concerns.

The Axios report said the US could end the administration’s curbs on Fable 5 by next week.

The US had intensified its focus on the security implications of increasingly powerful AI systems, citing that advanced models could be exploited by hostile nation-states, cybercriminals or malicious non-state actors.

The developments signal a thaw between the US administration and Anthropic.

Earlier this month, the US administration had directed Anthropic to block foreigners from accessing its AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

The company which owns the Claude chatbot, said the directive forced it to shut down both models.

Anthropic has been locked in a dispute with the Pentagon over the use of its AI by federal agencies. The company raised concerns on the Pentagon’s stance that its technology could be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapon.

Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were instrumental in deflating the reported stand-off between the administration and Anthropic, according to the Axios report.

The Pentagon had designated Anthropic a “supply-chain risk to national security,” after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei differed on how the Pentagon can use Claude. Anthropic has legally challenged the blacklisting.

Anthropic had reportedly made Fable 5 available free of cost on several paid Claude subscription plans before the access was cut off. It is not clear if the company will retain its free model or impose a charge.

Anthropic and OpenAI are advocating a permanent mechanism for reviewing new models. The companies are averse to a voluntary government vetting of the most powerful new AI models, which harps on a case-by-case approach.

OpenAI has made known its opposition to the process in a blog post on Friday, when it was allowed to begin a limited preview of GPT‑5.6. The company said in a blog post: “We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default.”

The company said it will work with the US Administration to develop the cyber Executive Order framework and a “repeatable process for future model releases.”