New York.- Amazon influenced the Trump Administration’s decision to restrict the use of artificial intelligence (AI) models from the tech company Anthropic, as reported this Saturday by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The media outlet, citing sources familiar with the decision, underscores that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy held a series of talks with U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
In the inquiries, Jassy indicated that Anthropic’s Fable 5 model could provide information that could be used to facilitate cyberattacks and that “in theory, it should be prohibited,” according to the New York newspaper.
The WSJ highlights that, shortly after the talks, White House officials met and decided that the most appropriate measure was to prevent foreign governments, companies, and individuals from using Anthropic’s AI, a decision that Trump subsequently approved.
In order to comply with this directive, Anthropic announced on the eve that it will suspend public access to its most advanced artificial intelligence models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5.
According to the tech company, the order to prevent its access from outside the United States or by foreigners within the country arrived on Friday afternoon.
Amazon’s millionaire investments in the midst of a conflict
Amazon has made significant investments in Anthropic and, for example, last April it announced that it would invest at least 5 billion dollars more in the company through an AI agreement by which the counterparty committed to spending 100 billion on Amazon Web Services over the next decade.
An Amazon spokesperson told the WSJ that, “as a leading cloud services provider serving a large number of public and private sector customers, it is common for governments to request our advice on potential security risks.”
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Last March, Anthropic sued the Trump Administration for designating it as a national supply chain risk, after it refused to hand over its AI models to the Department of War for any legal use.
The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which resulted in a ban on the company’s federal contracts, centered on the conditions the AI firm set to limit the use of its technology and receive guarantees that it would not be used to spy on Americans or for the use of fully autonomous weapons.
