By Angela Palumbo
The stock market was overlooking Anthropic's latest feud with the U.S. government on Monday, which highlights what could be an ongoing problem for tech stocks: government intervention.
Anthropic announced on Friday that it had suspended all access to its newest and most capable models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. This came after the government issued an export control directive to suspend access to the models by any foreign national, citing national security concerns.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that the Trump administration's decision to halt all foreign use of the models was prompted by conversations between Amazon.com Chief Executive Andy Jassy and U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
A White House official confirmed the report to Barron's. Barron's has also reached out to Amazon for comment.
The U.S. governments ability to put export controls on models has implications across the entire AI space.
"Is this a permanent combative relationship where the Feds can pull the rug from any company?" Paul Meeks, managing director at Freedom Capital Markets, said .
It looks like the market believes this is just Anthropic's problem for now. The tech heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 3.1% on Monday as Wall Street focused on the possibility of an imminent Iran-U.S. peace deal.
Anthropic also has a bumpy history with the Trump administration.
The president directed all federal agencies to phase out the use of Anthropic, including its Claude models, earlier this year. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also designated Anthropic a supply chain risk. This came after Anthropic wouldn't agree to Pentagon demands that would allow its AI tools to be used without the company's restrictions, particularly in scenarios involving lethal force and surveillance.
On Saturday, Hegseth wrote on X that "three months ago,@DeptofWar kicked @AnthropicAI out of our building -- forever. Every passing day proves why that was the right move."
"Do I give, as a tech investor, full valuation to revenue backlog with a federal government agency when it could be, 'oh, never mind,'" Meeks said. "Since this happened I can't deny it's a new risk."
CNBC reported that senior Anthropic staffers were meeting with Trump administration officials on Monday to try to resolve the dispute. The White House official also confirmed this reporting to Barron's and said meetings were happening today with the Commerce Department.
Anthropic would benefit from resolving this issue quickly ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering. The company announced on June 1 that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO of its common stock.
"Ideally, if you want to get max turn out for your IPO and the most stock sold at the highest price and the higher resulting valuation, you want to have everything checked off on the list," Meeks said. "And a good relationship with the federal government would be a nice check to have."
But even if this current issue is solved, the risk that the government can drop restrictions on AI models down the line looms.
Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 15, 2026 15:56 ET (19:56 GMT)
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