Claude Fable and Kayfabe

Anthropic:

On Friday, June 12, the US government applied export controls to our newest models, Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5. This required us to restrict access to foreign nationals, whether inside or outside the United States. Because the order took effect immediately and we had no reliable way to verify nationality in real-time, we suspended access to both models for all users.

As of today, June 30, the export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have been lifted.

That’s a link to this tweet on Twitter/X from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick:

Over the past two weeks, we have worked closely with Anthropic to analyze and approve Fable 5 to ensure alignment across the US Government and strengthen America’s leadership in AI.

I don’t think a goddamn thing happened in the last two weeks, and if anything did happen, it sure as shit wasn’t anything that Lutnick understood. There should be real government oversight regulating frontier AI, but this is just pantomime performative nonsense.

The entire Trump 2.0 term (and much of the 1.0 term before it) can be summarized with a single word: kayfabe, “the tacit agreement between professional wrestlers and their fans to pretend that overtly staged wrestling events, stories, characters, etc., are genuine”. Trumpism and MAGA is entirely about the belief system that everything is bullshit. Everyone is crooked, every supposed fact is merely an opinion, and everything is ultimately subject to the whims of whoever has power. The fix is not just in, it’s always been in, and always will be in. What Trump says is true is true because he’s the fucking president. Trump himself asserts that “evidence” is what he claims to see — not what he can actually show for others to see. If Trump says we won the war he needlessly started with Iran, then we won it. If Trump says there’s a peace deal 38 times, then there have been 38 peace deals. The FIFA “peace prize” Trump was awarded last year was no more legitimate or earned or meaningful than a WWE championship belt. It’s pro wrestling not just writ large, but (alas for the entire world) writ very large.

When you view Trump and his administration through the prism of kayfabe, it doesn’t make actual sense, but you can see how they think it makes sense.

I’m not accusing Anthropic of being in cahoots, per se, with the Trump administration on this whole “Fable is so good that it’s too dangerous ... wait two weeks ... OK now everyone can have it” back and forth. But they played along. “The AI model the Trump administration didn’t want you to have” is advertising no money could buy.

★ Thursday, 2 July 2026