Amazon CEO Andy Jassy personally raised concerns about security risks in Anthropic’s most advanced AI models to senior Trump administration officials this week, setting off the chain of events that led to Friday’s global shutdown of Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
According to Wall Street Journal reports, Jassy had told government officials that Amazon researchers used Claude Fable 5 to obtain information that could be used in cyberattacks. The government subsequently imposed an export control ban on both models through the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, forcing Anthropic to disable global access within hours of receiving the directive.
The revelation introduces a painful irony. Amazon has invested nearly $19 billion into Anthropic since 2023, making it the startup’s largest external backer. Ironically, the very company whose capital funded Fable 5’s development appears to have provided the intelligence that triggered its removal.
According to Reuters, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed that governments occasionally seek the company’s counsel on potential security risks.
“As a leading cloud provider that serves a large number of private and public sector customers, it’s not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel on potential security risks,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “When they occur, we don’t share the details of these discussions.”
Some experts who favor export controls on advanced AI models found the Trump administration’s action puzzling because it affects allied nations as well as adversaries.
“This was not well thought-out,” said Jimmy Goodrich, a senior fellow at the University of California’s Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation. “It even bans Canadians and Brits employed at Anthropic from doing research and development.”
The shutdown now casts uncertainty over that IPO timeline, as Anthropic navigates an increasingly complicated relationship with the government it had hoped to partner with on AI safety regulation
