The White House has imposed unprecedented government vetting on AI products for cybersecurity risks, restricting the release of new models from OpenAI and Anthropic to Trump-approved customers. The move follows actions taken earlier this month against Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, which took offline two new AI models in compliance with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals.
What Happened
ChatGPT maker OpenAI said Friday it is restricting the release of its new artificial intelligence model at the request of President Donald Trump's administration. The company stated that its newest model, called GPT-5.6 Sol, would be accessible only to customers approved by the Trump administration. This move follows actions taken earlier this month against Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, which took offline two new AI models in compliance with a Trump directive blocking their use by foreign nationals.
Anthropic announced hours later that the Trump administration has approved a limited release of its strongest cybersecurity model, two weeks after the U.S. Commerce Department effectively banned it. Both companies said their newest models would be available to small groups of trusted partners. OpenAI's staggered release of a powerful new AI system follows actions the government took earlier this month against Anthropic.
Background and Context
The White House has grown increasingly concerned since Anthropic warned earlier this year that its Mythos model was adept at finding software flaws in a way that could be weaponized by malicious hackers and threaten critical computer networks around the world. Trump earlier in June signed an executive order on AI oversight that established a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to 30 days before their public release.
The order described participation by AI developers as voluntary but the framework has not yet been fully developed. Some of Trump's allies have laid blame on San Francisco-based Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei for the need for heightened government scrutiny. "Dario came to Washington a few months ago, back in April, and basically said that he had created a cyber weapon called Mythos," said investor David Sacks, who co-leads Trump's council of technology and science advisers, on a recent podcast.
Why It Matters to the Industry
The government's heightened AI oversight adds another complication to exploratory moves by OpenAI as well as Anthropic to take their companies public on Wall Street. The move also raises concerns about the unpredictability of government intervention and its potential impact on US companies. U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat and co-author of a bipartisan bill that would regulate AI, said in a statement that she is concerned "the Trump administration is deciding company by company who gets access to the newest AI model. No law. No process. No oversight. Just appointees in Washington deciding who's in and who's out."
Stanford University cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos also criticized the government's actions, saying that he reviewed an analysis of research on Fable by Anthropic's primary cloud computing backer, Amazon, and didn't find any risks that aren't present with other publicly available AI models, including those made in China. "If the administration is honest about wanting the United States to beat China in this race, then this is about the dumbest thing they could possibly do," Stamos said.
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