TL;DR
Trump told Axios that Anthropic has “behaved very responsibly” and noted that it could ease restrictions on its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models.
President Donald Trump said in a pre-recorded Axios interview. that no longer views Anthropic as a national security threat, marking a sharp shift from the administration’s aggressive stance toward the artificial intelligence company over the past three months. When asked if he considers the anthropic a threat, Trump responded: “Well, not now. But maybe a week ago.He added that the company has “He behaved very responsibly.“
The comments come just days after the Commerce Department issued a directive on June 12 ordering Anthropic to seek approval from the U.S. government before foreign nationals access its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, the company’s most powerful artificial intelligence systems. That order followed months of growing tension between the administration and Anthropic over the company’s refusal to remove certain safety guardrails from its military products. The directive actually It triggered crisis-level talks between Anthropic and Commerce Department officials. last week.
Trump met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Wednesday at the G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, a meeting that appears to have changed the president’s stance. The meeting came after Anthropic’s senior technical staff held separate talks 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 would have to,” when asked about a possible rollback.
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The dispute dates back to March 2026, when the Pentagon designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk after the company refused to remove security barriers related to surveillance and autonomous weapons from products used by the US military. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick subsequently sent a letter threatening criminal charges against the company, a move that drew criticism from technology industry groups and led allied governments, including the United Kingdom, to lobby for exemptions.
The timing of Trump’s conciliatory tone is significant. Anthropic confidentially filed for an initial public offering in early June, with a valuation Fortune reported at about $965 billion. The ongoing federal restrictions had created uncertainty about the listing, and any sign of de-escalation from the White House could stabilize investor confidence ahead of the offering.
Trump described the situation as creating “tremendous responsibility” for the administration, an acknowledgment that the crackdown had sparked backlash from both the industry and its allies. The president also said he would not close Anthropic, though he stopped short of committing to a specific timeline for lifting the Commerce Department’s directive.
Change does not erase the underlying disagreement. The Pentagon supply chain designation remains in effect and the Commerce Department’s June 12 order has not been formally rescinded. Anthropic has not publicly indicated whether it plans to modify its barrier policies to meet the military’s demands.
What has changed is the political signal from above: Trump seems willing to negotiate rather than escalate the situation.
Amodei has been working on multiple channels to resolve the standoff. At the G7 summit, he and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis jointly participated presented US-led AI coalition to G7 leaderspositioning Anthropic as a cooperative partner in US technology diplomacy rather than a regulatory adversary. The strategy appears to have given Amodei direct access to Trump at a time when the president was appearing receptive.
Whether the warm words translate into policy remains an open question. The Commerce Department operates with considerable independence on export control matters, and reversing a formal directive requires bureaucratic steps that a single interview cannot avoid. For Anthropic, the Axios interview is a political victory, but legal and regulatory limitations remain until the administration acts on it.
