When the Trump administration cracks down on Anthropic, who benefits?

Anthropic recently took its two newest AI models offline due to an export control order from the Trump administration, sparking widespread debates over AI policy and digital sovereignty.

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan and I discussed what prompted the government’s moves against Anthropic, and what it could mean for the broader AI ecosystem.

As Sean put it, “Anthropic hasn’t had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that differentiates itself from the other leading AI labs,” so perhaps Anthropic’s other rivals don’t have to worry about a similar crackdown.

But Rebecca also noted that leading cybersecurity experts “signed an open letter asking Trump to rescind the order, saying it is actually dangerous to have to wrest these advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the U.S.”

And we wondered if this could all turn into good publicity for Anthropic, especially since – in Rebecca’s words – “everyone loves a bad boy.”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Rebecca Bellan: As many of our listeners no doubt know, the US government basically just forced Anthropic to take its two newest models offline – Fable 5, and then there was Mythos 5, the one that was available to current Mythos users. [whereas] Fable 5 was more available to the public.

They sent a letter [last] “National security concerns” were reported on Friday. No one knows what those concerns are. That report was not made public, they did not give any details or tell it [Anthropic] that they had to ensure that those models could not be used by foreigners. So Anthropic said, “Okay, I think we should just use the models altogether, because we don’t know when someone has a foreign nationality. A lot of our own employees are foreigners.”

But really, [reports said] the White House was tipped off about this due to some Amazon researchers who reportedly found a way around Fable 5’s guardrails. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy raised these concerns with the White House, and things spiraled from there.

Sean O’Kane: This all happened very quickly, especially for a Friday afternoon on a weekend. And it is at the same time that the administration was ostensibly trying to negotiate some kind of treaty for the war it had started in Iran.

Rebecca: Friday night for us in New York. They like distractions.

Sean: Let’s go back a long way. Anthropic hasn’t had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that differentiates it from the other leading AI labs – I think there’s at least an element of that at play.

Do you think this will have an impact on those other companies? Do you think the Trump administration would be less inclined to turn off the tap on one of those competitors?

Anthony Ha: Part of the context here is that both the reporting and an analysis from independent security experts suggest that Anthropic’s actual security risk is not that unique. So a lot of this seems to stem as much from parts of the Trump administration and Anthropic [not getting] very well. Whatever risks there are, those things are going to blow out of proportion just because they can’t seem to have a civil phone conversation with each other.

If you’re a different company, on the one hand that might be beneficial to you because you can say, “Well, we just don’t let these guys get mad at us and we can do whatever we want.” But that’s not a great regulatory landscape either [say]”Boy, I hope they don’t get mad at us.”

Rebecca: On the one hand, it certainly feels like retaliation: after the administration labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk and there’s a major lawsuit going on between them, it really feels like the White House is just looking for an excuse to bash Anthropic. And I feel that way not only because that was my first reaction, but also because of what many cybersecurity researchers have said. They say this should never have led to an export control [order]. They’ve all signed an open letter asking Trump to rescind the order, saying it’s actually dangerous to have to take over these advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the US. Anthropic itself said that some of the same jailbreaks could have been found in several other AI models as well.

Cynically, it’s something like: Okay, are you just pausing Anthropic so others can see where Anthropic was?

But at the same time I have also seen reactions [say]: Anthropic already had this coming. They say, “This is too dangerous for anyone to use, but not us, we’re the good guys.” They talk out of both sides of their mouths. A week before Fable came out, they were [saying]”Hey, we gotta slow down the AI, guys. It’s getting really dangerous.” But then boom: “Here’s our most insane, super-powered model yet.”

Anthony: In some ways this feels like a microcosm of much of the discussion around AI, where people like Sam Altman and Jensen Huang [saying]”Hey, let’s try to lower the temperature. Why is everyone mad at us?” Well, you’ve basically been saying for the past few years that you’ve built this God machine that’s going to take jobs away from everyone. It’s not exactly a shock that people are uncomfortable with this.

And there’s something about the way Anthropic talks about Mythos in particular where they say, “This is the most incredibly powerful model ever, it’s too dangerous to release to the public.” And so on some level, [you say,] “Well, okay, let’s just say we take that seriously then. That means there’s going to be an incredible level of research around it.”

And I wonder: It seems like Anthropic isn’t happy about this. I want to be careful not to exaggerate how this could benefit them. But we also published some Disaster Analysis stories to highlight that the last big fallout between Anthropic and the Trump administration was at least in some ways good for the company. Claude’s number of downloads skyrocketed. I think a lot of people might like ChatGPT the chatbot, the AI assistant before, they suddenly looked at Claude as perhaps the more responsible, the more ‘resistance-oriented’.

And in the same way, [while] Anthropic is very stressed about this, which could once again make their models seem even more powerful.

Rebecca: Certainly. “We are so dangerous.” Everyone loves a bad boy, right? Everyone says, “It’s the most powerful model, even Trump says that. Of course I have to get my hands on it.”