He is paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to advise one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence labs—but former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has just been locked out of the company’s most advanced tools.
In a sudden move, AI giant Anthropic has disabled access to its most powerful systems, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, following an emergency export control directive from the US Department of Commerce under the Trump administration.
The Security “Jailbreak”
The US intervention was triggered by fears of a system “jailbreak”—a vulnerability that could theoretically allow users to bypass the AI’s built-in safety protections. Washington raised concerns that without these guardrails, the advanced models could be exploited for hacking or developing weapons.
The US export control directive specifically prevents Anthropic from offering the system to any foreign national. Because the company does not track the nationalities of its individual users, Anthropic opted to implement a blanket global block to ensure compliance. The ban even extends to Anthropic’s own non-US employees.
No VIP Access for Sunak
Sunak joined Anthropic as a senior advisor in October 2025, taking on a role designed to act as an “internal think tank” providing high-level strategic perspectives on geopolitical and macroeconomic trends.
Despite his high-profile position—which pays an estimated £373,000 a year in company shares (a sum Sunak donates entirely to his numeracy charity, the Richmond Project)—the former Prime Minister does not have privileged access to the company’s internal systems. As a result, he is caught in the same digital blockade as the rest of the world.
An Ironic Twist
The situation presents a heavy dose of irony for Sunak. During his time at 10 Downing Street, he positioned the UK as a pioneer in AI regulation, hosting the world’s first AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in 2023. He repeatedly warned that while AI offered tremendous economic opportunities, its risks had to be faced “head-on” with robust international guardrails.
Now, those very international guardrails have cut him off from the technology he advises on.
Anthropic has stated that they believe the US government’s ban is the result of a misunderstanding regarding the models’ safety features and that they expect the issue to be resolved shortly. Until then, one of the tech world’s most famous advisors will have to wait in line with everyone else.
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