Anthropic’s Rise Amid a Trump‑era Clash

The AI startup Anthropic ended May with a landmark win, overtaking its main rival in the amount of money businesses spent on artificial intelligence. Its valuation jumped to $965 billion after a fresh funding round, and the company filed for an initial public offering in June, buoyed by its first profitable quarter. Shortly before the IPO filings, a letter from the Trump administration demanded that Anthropic bar non‑American users—including its own employees—from using two of its newest models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5. The order forced the firm to pull these powerful tools from the market entirely. The White House cited an obscure export‑control rule, but analysts suspect the real trigger was concerns that hackers could bypass Fable 5’s safety checks. The model, praised for spotting software bugs, was marketed as “dangerous” and its release was heavily restricted.Despite the political backlash, business adoption of Anthropic’s offerings grew. Data from a platform that tracks AI spending by over 70, 000 companies shows the share of subscriptions paid for by businesses rose to 41 % in May—up 2. 5 percentage points from April—while its competitor stayed near 39 %. Most corporate spending still centers on API calls for coding tasks, where Anthropic’s Claude Code remains a top choice. In the few transactions that reveal model names, firms are mainly using various versions of Claude Opus, especially the latest release Opus 4. 8 that came out in late May. This older model, which preceded Mythos, is still publicly available and continues to attract users. Although the fallout with Washington may complicate Anthropic’s IPO plans—public investors often shy away from companies in government disputes—the current data suggest that its accessible models are more popular than ever with businesses.