Trump Admin Export Ban on Anthropic Models Sparks AI Access Crisis and Open-Source Shift

Anthropic surpassed OpenAI in market share of business spending for the first time, according to Ramp. The company raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation at the end of May. It filed confidential paperwork for an IPO on the strength of its first profitable quarter. The Trump administration sent a letter on Friday demanding that Anthropic ban non-Americans, including its employees, from accessing Mythos 5 and Fable 5. This forced the company to pull the models from the market. The White House invoked an obscure export control directive, though the exact cause remains unclear. Reports suggest hackers bypassed Fable 5 guardrails meant to prevent access to Mythos capabilities. Mythos was marketed as dangerous due to its ability to find security flaws in code and received restricted public release. This development follows Anthropic's refusal to allow government use of models for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, resulting in a March supply chain risk designation. Ramp data from more than 70,000 businesses indicates Anthropic's share of business AI subscriptions rose 2.5 percentage points in May to 41 percent, while OpenAI stood at 39.5 percent and remained flat. Business use has grown despite prior government actions. Ara Kharazian of Ramp observed that the earlier supply chain risk label coincided with Anthropic's best month for business adoption and suggested the latest events may boost the company further due to the associated aura. Companies spend primarily on API calls for activities such as coding. Where details are available, in about one third of transactions, spending focuses on Claude Opus models. Anthropic released Opus 4.8 in late May, while Mythos was limited to select users since April and Fable 5 lasted only a few days.