Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic model concerns before government crackdown

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy may have been the source of security concerns that led Anthropic to cut off worldwide access to two models on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Jassy told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other government officials that Amazon researchers used Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 to obtain information that could be used in cyberattacks. The government subsequently imposed an export control ban on the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.

An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that while it’s “not uncommon for governments to seek our counsel on potential security risks,” the company does not “share the details of those discussions.”

The spokesperson also pointed to an update stating that AWS has been affected by the model cut off.

The Information and Reuters similarly reported that Amazon (a major Anthropic investor) had communicated concerns about the security of Anthropic’s models.

David Sacks, Trump’s former AI czar who now co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, offered his own account of the discussions, claiming that “a highly credible trusted partner of both Anthropic and the USG […] came forward with a jailbreak.”

Sacks added, “The Admin asked [Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei] to fix the jailbreak or de-deploy the model. Dario refused.”

Anthropic said in a blog post that the capabilities apparently causing government concern are already available in other publicly accessible models.

This post has been updated with a statement from an Amazon spokesperson.

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