On Friday, OpenAI announced it was withholding the wide release of its latest AI model, GPT-5.6, at the request of the U.S. government. On the same day, the U.S. Commerce Department told Anthropic that export controls on its Mythos AI model would be relaxed, following a two-week export ban. Anthropic, valued at $965 billion and having filed paperwork for an IPO, has faced a far rougher ride in Trump’s D.C. than OpenAI. Twice the administration has taken unprecedented actions posing potentially existential risk to the startup. In April, the Pentagon labelled Anthropic a “supply chain risk” after it refused contract language. Two weeks ago, export controls were imposed on Mythos and Fable after a Fable jailbreak was discovered. Trump administration officials have engaged in vitriolic attacks against the company and CEO Dario Amodei. Trump posted that the company consisted of “leftwing nut jobs.” Undersecretary of defense Emil Michael posted that “it’s a shame that Dario Amodei is a liar and has a God-complex.” Defense secretary Pete Hegseth called Amodei “an ideological lunatic.” David Sacks accused the company of running a “sophisticated regulatory capture” strategy and an “agenda to backdoor Woke AI.” Anonymous senior U.S. officials portrayed Amodei as arrogant and aloof; Anthropic disputed this, saying Amodei was on