U.S. Concerns Over SK Telecom’s Alleged China Ties Put Anthropic’s Mythos Access Under Scrutiny

U.S. officials asked Anthropic to revoke SK Telecom’s access to Claude Mythos after raising concerns about the South Korean telecom company’s alleged ties to China, according to reporting cited by The Decoder and WIRED.

SK Telecom’s access drew scrutiny

The Decoder reported that SK Telecom had access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model through a partner program called Project Glasswing before the White House intervened. WIRED reported that U.S. officials’ concerns over alleged China ties at SK Telecom contributed to the White House asking Anthropic to revoke the company’s Claude Mythos access before broader export-control restrictions were imposed.

The Washington Post separately reported that the administration found a South Korean telecommunications company it suspected of China ties among expanded Mythos recipients. According to the Post’s account, that discovery damaged the White House’s trust in Anthropic before the company pulled its flagship models.

The available source excerpts do not detail the specific nature of the alleged China ties, nor do they say that SK Telecom violated any law. The reporting describes U.S. government concerns and the response those concerns triggered inside Anthropic’s access arrangements.

Anthropic says it received a government directive

Anthropic’s own statement confirms that it received a U.S. government export-control directive on June 12, 2026, ordering the company to suspend foreign-national access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Anthropic said it disabled the models for all customers to comply with the directive.

That statement provides the clearest on-the-record confirmation that the company’s model access changed because of a U.S. government order. The excerpts from WIRED and The Washington Post connect that action to earlier concerns about expanded access to Mythos and the presence of a South Korean telecom company among recipients.

Export controls reach AI model access

The episode shows how U.S. export-control policy is being applied not only to chips and infrastructure, but also to access to advanced AI models. In this case, Anthropic’s statement says the directive covered foreign-national access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, while WIRED and The Washington Post reported that concerns about Anthropic’s partner access helped set the stage for the broader restrictions.

The Decoder framed the incident as a crisis for Anthropic involving SK Telecom’s Claude Mythos access and U.S. officials’ concerns about China links. WIRED described SK Telecom as the Korean telecom giant at the center of the Mythos controversy, while The Washington Post characterized the incident as part of a broader breakdown in trust between Anthropic and the White House.

What remains unclear

The public excerpts leave several important questions unanswered. They do not specify what evidence led U.S. officials to suspect China ties at SK Telecom. They also do not state whether SK Telecom used Claude Mythos for a particular deployment, research project, or internal evaluation under Project Glasswing.

What is established by the cited sources is narrower: SK Telecom had access to Claude Mythos through Anthropic’s partner program; U.S. officials became concerned about alleged China ties; the White House asked Anthropic to revoke access, according to WIRED; and Anthropic later confirmed it suspended access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after a U.S. export-control directive.

For AI companies, the case underlines the compliance risks of distributing frontier-model access across international partners. For governments, it reflects growing attention to who can use advanced models, not just where the underlying hardware is shipped.