White House takes control of frontier AI model access | OpenAI and Anthropic used to decide who gets in — now the White House does
TL;DR
The Trump administration is now dictating which firms can access the latest frontier AI models, taking that power from OpenAI and Anthropic; the White House calls engagements "voluntary."
The Trump administration has taken new steps to dictate which companies and entities are allowed to access the latest frontier AI models, sources say. That decision used to sit with the US AI giants. CNBC reported the shift.
Anthropic and OpenAI had been deciding on their own which businesses and institutions could use their most powerful models, usually including large enterprise customers. That power is being pulled back. The administration previously blocked Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 on "national security" grounds, restoring access only after weeks of negotiation; it also asked OpenAI to gate its GPT-5.6 release to "trusted partners."
A White House official told CNBC the government does not approve AI model releases from private companies. Any engagement, testing or meetings with government experts are "voluntary," the official said, and "decisions on timing and scope of releases rest entirely with the companies," pointing CNBC to a recent executive order signed by Trump.
The official line is "voluntary." But the list of who gets the most powerful models is no longer in the companies' hands.
via CNBC / ifeng Tech
Anthropic and OpenAI had been deciding on their own which businesses and institutions could use their most powerful models, usually including large enterprise customers. That power is being pulled back. The administration previously blocked Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 on "national security" grounds, restoring access only after weeks of negotiation; it also asked OpenAI to gate its GPT-5.6 release to "trusted partners."
A White House official told CNBC the government does not approve AI model releases from private companies. Any engagement, testing or meetings with government experts are "voluntary," the official said, and "decisions on timing and scope of releases rest entirely with the companies," pointing CNBC to a recent executive order signed by Trump.
The official line is "voluntary." But the list of who gets the most powerful models is no longer in the companies' hands.
via CNBC / ifeng Tech
