TL;DR
Trump told Axios that Anthropic was “behaving very responsibly” and hinted that it might ease restrictions on the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models.
President Donald Trump said in a pre-recorded interview with Axios it no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat, marking a sharp reversal from the administration’s aggressive stance against the AI company over the past three months. When asked whether he considers anthropicism a threat, Trump answered:Well, not now. But maybe a week ago.He added that the companyhe behaved very responsibly.“
The comments come days after the Commerce Department issued a June 12 directive ordering Anthropic to obtain US government approval before foreign nationals can access the company’s most powerful AI systems, the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The order followed months of tension between the administration and Anthropic over the company’s refusal to remove some safety guards from its military-grade products. The directive is effective It led to crisis-level talks between Department of Anthropology and Commerce officials last week.
Trump met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at the G7 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France on Wednesday, a meeting that appears to have changed the president’s stance. The meeting came after senior Anthropic technical staff held separate discussions with Trump administration officials earlier in the week. Trump told Axios he would consider easing restrictions, saying, “I would, but I’m not sure I should,” when asked about a potential rollback.
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The dispute dates back to March 2026, when the Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply chain risk after the Pentagon refused to remove guardrails associated with surveillance and autonomous weapons from products used by the US military. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later sent a letter threatening criminal charges against the company, drawing criticism from tech industry groups. It prompted allied governments, including Great Britain, to lobby for exemptions.
The timing of Trump’s conciliatory tone is significant. Anthropic secretly filed for an initial public offering in early June, and Fortune valued it at about $965 billion. Continued federal restrictions have created uncertainty about the listing, and any signal of de-escalation from the White House could stabilize investor confidence ahead of the bid.
Trump assessed the situation as creatinggreat responsibility” for the administration, acknowledging that the crackdown has caused a backlash from industry and allies alike. The president also stopped short of committing to a specific timeline for reversing the Commerce Department directive, but said he would not close Anthropic.
The amendment does not erase the underlying disagreement. The Pentagon’s supply chain designation remains in place, and the Commerce Department’s June 12 order has not been formally revoked. Anthropic has not publicly said whether it plans to change its protective policy to meet the military’s demands.
What has changed is the political signal from above: Trump appears willing to negotiate rather than escalate.
Amodei works through multiple channels to resolve the conflict. At the G7 summit, he together with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis He introduced the US-led AI coalition to the G7 leadersPositioning Anthropic as a collaborative partner in American technology diplomacy, not a regulatory adversary. The strategy gave Amodei direct access to Trump at a moment the president embraced.
It remains an open question whether hot words will translate into politics. The Commerce Department operates largely independently in export control matters, and withdrawing a formal order requires bureaucratic steps that an interview cannot shortcut. For Anthropic, the Axios interview is a political victory, but legal and regulatory constraints remain until the administration can act on them.
