Rishi Sunak Locked Out of Anthropic's Top AI Models Despite £373,000 Advisory Role

A Adviser Shut Out of His Own Company's Tech

Rishi Sunak, the former UK Prime Minister who joined Anthropic as a paid adviser in October 2025, is believed to be among those now unable to access the AI company's most powerful models. The reason is a Trump administration export control directive ordering Anthropic to cut off all foreign nationals, leaving Sunak locked out of the very technology he is paid £373,000 a year to help guide. As a British national, he falls squarely within the scope of the order, producing the unusual spectacle of a senior adviser unable to use his own firm's flagship products. His earnings from the role are directed to a charity he founded, and he also holds positions at Microsoft and Goldman Sachs.

The Export Control Directive

On Friday 12 June 2026, at 5:21 p.m. ET, Anthropic received an export control directive from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, signed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and addressed to CEO Dario Amodei. It ordered the company to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for all foreign nationals, whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic's own foreign-national employees. The company said it had no choice but to "abruptly disable" both models for every customer worldwide to ensure compliance.

The directive cited national security concerns. According to reporting from Axios and Semafor, the action followed fears the models had been accessed by a group linked to China, and that another company had demonstrated a successful jailbreak of Mythos 5, a model noted for its ability to detect long-hidden software vulnerabilities. Anthropic said it believed there had been a "misunderstanding" and was working to restore access, arguing that a narrow potential jailbreak should not justify recalling a commercially deployed model.

A Long-Running Feud

The ban is the latest escalation in a months-long dispute. In February 2026, Trump ordered all federal agencies to phase out Anthropic technology after the company refused to grant unrestricted military access to its systems. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth labelled Anthropic a "supply chain risk", though a federal judge temporarily blocked that designation in March.

Global Fallout

The disruption has rippled outward. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has sought a British carve-out from the restrictions. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the episode a cautionary tale about over-reliance on a handful of American technology providers, while the European Commission's newly published Tech Sovereignty Package has taken on fresh urgency. Markets reacted too, with Chinese AI stocks surging as investors repriced a suddenly reshuffled global AI landscape.