OpenAI released a cybersecurity model this week that matches or exceeds Anthropic's heavily restricted Mythos offering, yet faced no public backlash from the Trump administration. The contrast has sparked questions about what specifically drove federal export controls targeting Anthropic's models.
The company unveiled GPT-5.5-Cyber on Monday alongside a push to expand partnerships with cybersecurity firms and researchers. In internal testing using CyberGym, a benchmark that evaluates whether an AI system can identify and replicate known software vulnerabilities, OpenAI's model scored 85.6 percent. Mythos 5 achieved 83.8 percent on the same test.
Despite comparable technical performance, the two models have traveled very different paths. OpenAI announced its release with minimal friction. Anthropic, by contrast, is now barred from allowing foreign nationals to use its advanced models, a directive that emerged from the Trump administration and has become a major compliance headache for the company.
The disparity raises an obvious puzzle: if the concern is genuinely about AI capabilities in cybersecurity, why did OpenAI avoid the same restrictions? The White House and OpenAI declined to comment on the question.
OpenAI has also expanded cybersecurity partnerships with organizations spanning Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, South Korea and the European Union. That international footprint sits at odds with the export controls now hemming in Anthropic, which became a central discussion point at last week's G7 Summit as nations wrestled over how to access advanced AI systems.
Behind closed doors, friction between Anthropic and the Trump administration may have played a role beyond the technical specifications. Reports suggest personality clashes between company leadership and federal officials contributed to the crackdown, adding a political layer to what appeared on the surface as a national security decision.
The timing and selective nature of the restrictions have left cybersecurity researchers and government contractors scrambling to understand the rules. OpenAI's clean passage through the same landscape deepens the mystery about whether the Anthropic directive reflects genuine security doctrine or something messier.
Author James Rodriguez: "If capability parity isn't driving these export controls, the Trump team owes the tech world a straight explanation of what is."
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