White House officials have stopped asking for Dario Amodei during calls about Anthropic‘s Claude Fable 5 model. They now speak with co-founder Tom Brown instead. One person close to the meetings described Brown as someone who can actually engage, contrasting him with Amodei, who was previously viewed as too difficult to talk to and unwilling to listen to concerns.
Export controls on Anthropic’s most powerful models remain in place. The National Security Agency confirmed on June 12 that methods exist to disable guardrails and access restricted capabilities within the company’s Mythos model. These controls took the models offline.
Recent discussions have occurred at both senior and technical levels. Staff from both sides have met to discuss what proof from Anthropic might ease administration worries regarding jailbreaks of Fable 5. Sarah Heck, Anthropic’s public policy chief, has led the outreach alongside Brown.
Independent cybersecurity experts argue that guardrails are merely a temporary measure. They believe skilled users and future AI systems will find ways to bypass constraints regardless of current restrictions.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Anthropic did not respond to a request for information.
The timeline for re-deploying Fable 5 is uncertain. However, the specific steps required to lift export controls may become clearer soon.
Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent questions to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick has taken a leading role in addressing jailbreak risks because the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security manages export controls.
The letter, signed by representatives Sam Liccardo, Jay Obernolte, C. Scott Franklin, and Ted Lieu, asked for the specific criteria used to determine if public access to a model should be restored via a revised decision. It also requested the timeline for that decision.
Lawmakers demanded responses by June 26. A Commerce Department spokesperson declined to say if the agency would meet the deadline.
What it means
For Anthropic, the change in leadership at the White House meetings suggests a shift in how the company approaches security discussions. Brown and Heck seem to have found a more productive rapport with officials than Amodei did. This could speed up the review process for Fable 5, provided the technical proof required satisfies the administration.
