The White House suspects a China-linked group accessed Anthropic's powerful Mythos AI model, contributing to export restrictions; Anthropic denies China was discussed during export control talks.
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<p class="has-text-align-none">According to a new report from <em><a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/06/13/2026/white-house-move-to-limit-anthropic-linked-to-concerns-about-chinese-access-to-mythos">Semafor</a></em>, the White House's decision to impose <a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949553/anthropic-fable-5-mythos-5-government-national-security">export restrictions</a> on Anthropic's Mythos was driven in part by fears that it had been accessed by a group linked to China. If the Chinese government actually had access to Mythos 5 or Fable 5, it would present a serious national security risk. The government could also attempt to reverse engineer the model through <a href="https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/knowledge-distillation">distillation</a>, a method in which a "student" AI is trained on a more advanced model to replicate its behavior.</p>
<p class="has-text-align-none">The White House has not confirmed this report, and a post on X by Trump advisor <a href="https://x.com/davidsacks/status/2065853007619588171?s=46">David Sacks</a> did not mention China. Instead, Sacks focused on a r …</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949644/china-white-house-anthropic-mythos">Read the full story at The Verge.</a></p>
# China may have accessed Mythos
Source: [https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949644/china-white-house-anthropic-mythos](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949644/china-white-house-anthropic-mythos)
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The White House reportedly has suspicions that a China\-linked group had access to Anthropic’s powerful AI\.
The White House reportedly has suspicions that a China\-linked group had access to Anthropic’s powerful AI\.
by
Jun 14, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
[](https://www.theverge.com/authors/terrence-obrien)
Terrence O'Brien
is the Verge’s weekend editor\. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget\.
According to a new report from*[Semafor](https://www.semafor.com/article/06/13/2026/white-house-move-to-limit-anthropic-linked-to-concerns-about-chinese-access-to-mythos)*, the White House’s decision to impose[export restrictions](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949553/anthropic-fable-5-mythos-5-government-national-security)on Anthropic’s Mythos was driven in part by fears that it had been accessed by a group linked to China\. If the Chinese government actually had access to Mythos 5 or Fable 5, it would present a serious national security risk\. The government could also attempt to reverse engineer the model through[distillation](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/knowledge-distillation), a method in which a “student” AI is trained on a more advanced model to replicate its behavior\.
The White House has not confirmed this report, and a post on X by Trump advisor[David Sacks](https://x.com/davidsacks/status/2065853007619588171?s=46)did not mention China\. Instead, Sacks focused on a reported ability for Fable and Mythos to be[jailbroken](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/949601/amazon-anthropic-fablemythos-government-ban), something that Anthropic has denied\. Anthropic has not replied to a request for comment, though a spokesperson told*Semafor*that the government did not bring up China during its discussions around export controls\.
If Mythos was accessed by the Chinese government, it wouldn’t be the first[embarrassing](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/917644/anthropic-claude-mythos-breach-humiliation)breach of Anthropic’s most powerful model\. The company has said that Mythos is too dangerous and powerful for public consumption, but a Discord group[reportedly had access](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/916501/anthropic-mythos-unauthorized-users-access-security)for two weeks before Anthropic discovered the breach and cut off access\.
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MythosWatch reveals that early access to Anthropic’s powerful Mythos AI is concentrated among US-aligned infrastructure, finance, and government bodies, while the Pentagon, EU, and China are blocked or excluded, prompting global regulatory responses.
The US government imposed an export ban on Anthropic's AI model Mythos after the company's safety claims and government talks led to concerns, sparking debate on AI regulation and national security.
The Trump administration ordered Anthropic to block access to its AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for foreign nationals, citing national security export controls. Experts say this unprecedented action exposes uncertainty in AI governance, as traditional export rules don't clearly apply to remote AI services.
The Trump administration issued an export control directive to Anthropic, demanding suspension of access to its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 AI models over security concerns, leading to emergency negotiations that could reshape the AI industry.
Zhipu AI released its open-weight GLM-5.2 model, which reportedly matches Anthropic's Mythos in cybersecurity bug-finding tasks, narrowing the gap between Chinese and US AI capabilities.