When the Trump administration cracks down on anthropology, who benefits?

Anthropic recently shut down its two newest AI models due to the Trump administration’s export control order, sparking broad debates about AI policy and digital sovereignty.

In the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan, and I discuss what actually prompted management’s move against Anthropics, and what this could mean for the broader AI ecosystem.

As Sean said, “Anthropic hasn’t had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that other leading AI labs have,” so Anthropic’s other competitors probably don’t need to worry about a similar crackdown.

But Rebecca also noted that top cybersecurity experts “signed an open letter asking Trump to rescind the order, saying it is already dangerous to have to take away these advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the United States.”

We wondered if all this could be good publicity for Anthropic, especially since – as Rebecca put it – “everyone loves a bad boy.”

Keep reading for a preview of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Rebecca Bellan: As I’m sure many of our listeners know, the US government forced Anthropic to pull its two most recent models offline – Fable 5, and then there was also Mythos 5, which was available to existing Mythos users, [whereas] Myth 5 was more accessible to the public.

They sent a message [last] Friday, which cited “national security concerns.” No one knows what those fears are. This report was not published, nor did they provide any details nor were they informed of it [Anthropic] They had to ensure that these forms could not be used by any foreign national. So Anthropic was like, “Well, I think we should pull the models completely, because we don’t know when someone is a foreign national. A lot of our employees are foreign nationals.”

but really, [reports said] This was reported to the White House due to some researchers at Amazon who allegedly found a way to bypass Fable 5’s guardrails. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy raised these concerns with the White House, and things have escalated from there.

Sean O’Kane: This all moved very quickly, especially on a Friday afternoon on a weekend. At the same time, the administration was ostensibly trying to negotiate some sort of treaty for the war it had begun in Iran.

Rebecca: Friday evening to us in New York. They love distraction.

Shawn: Let’s step back a lot for a moment. Anthropic hasn’t had the best relationship with the Trump administration in a way that’s different from other leading AI labs — I think there’s an element, at least, of that at play here.

Do you think this will have implications for those other companies? Do you think the Trump administration would be less inclined to turn off the tap on one of these competitors?

Anthony Ha: Part of the context here is that reports and analysis by independent security experts indicate that the actual security risks from Anthropic are not unique. So a lot of this seems to stem from parts of the Trump administration and just man [not getting] Along very well. Whatever dangers there are, these things will blow out of proportion just because they can’t seem to make a civil phone call to each other.

If you’re another company – on the one hand, maybe it’s good for you, because you can say, “Okay, we’re not making these people mad at us and we can do whatever we want.” But this is also not only a fascinating regulatory landscape [say]“Boy, I hope they don’t get mad at us.”

Rebecca: On the one hand, it definitely seems vindictive – after the government called Anthropic a risk to the supply chain, and there’s this big lawsuit going on between them, it really seems like the White House is just looking for any excuse to hit Anthropic. And I feel this way not only because that was my initial reaction, but because of what a lot of cybersecurity researchers have said. This, they say, should never have led to export controls [order]. They have all signed an open letter asking Trump to rescind the order, and say it is already dangerous to have to take away such advanced cybersecurity capabilities from network defenders in the United States. Anthropic itself said that some of the same jailbreaks could have been found in many other AI models.

Sarcastically, it’s like: Well, are you just pausing Anthropy so other people can catch up with what Anthropy has been up to?

But at the same time, I also saw the reactions to that [say]: Anthropic kinda had this coming. They’re saying, “This is too dangerous for anyone to use, but not us. We’re the good guys.” They speak from both sides of their mouth. A week before Fable came out, they were [saying]”Hey, we need to slow down the AI, guys. It’s getting really dangerous.” But then boom, “This is our craziest model ever, and it’s a super powerful model, go.”

Anthony: In some ways, this seems like a microcosm of a lot of discussions about AI, where people like Sam Altman and Jensen Huang are present. [saying]”Hey, let’s try to lower the temperature. Why is everyone mad at us?” Well, you’ve spent the last two years saying you built this god machine that’s going to take jobs away from everyone. It’s not exactly a shock that people don’t feel good about this.

And there’s something about the way the Anthropists talk about the Mythos in particular, where they say, “This is the most incredibly powerful model ever, and it’s very dangerous to release it to the public.” And so on some level, [you say,] “Okay, well, let’s say we take this seriously then. That means there’s going to be an incredible level of scrutiny around this.”

And I’m wondering – it looks like Anthropic isn’t happy about this. I want to be careful about not overestimating how beneficial this is for them. But we also published some stories about Ramp’s analysis to highlight the fact that the recent major spat between Anthropic and the Trump administration has been good for the company, at least in some ways. Cloud downloads are up. I think a lot of people might have thought about ChatGPT as well the chat bot, the The AI ​​assistant from before, suddenly they were looking at Claude as perhaps the most responsible, most “resistant” person.

In the same way, [while] Anthropists are very nervous about this, and this may make their models seem more powerful again.

Rebecca: definitely. “We are too dangerous.” Everyone loves a bad boy, right? Everyone says: “It’s the strongest model, even Trump says that. Of course, I have to get my hands on it.”