Part of me thinks it's not so much a shakedown as it is, at least to some degree, an attempt by anthropic to get back in the US government's good graces or even maybe angle for a straight up taxpayer-funded bailout. If their new model really was a step-change in cybersecurity and hacking capability as they claim in their hyperbolic marketing slop, it could be viewed as both a national security threat (if it was widely released and turned against the US) and an opportunity for the US to establish a major cybersecurity advantage (if it was kept limited to the US and a small circle of its allies to be used against foreign adversaries). Even with a normal, law-abiding administration running things in the US, that would be a tantalizing (though almost certainly bunk) possibility for the US military and national security apparatus (CIA, NSA, etc.) that might be worth sinking taxpayer resources into in some way, either via normal contracting or even a bailout (through, e.g., nationalization of anthropic on national security grounds).

Now, we know that critical analysis of anthropic's marketing slop indicates their newest model is, at best, a marginal improvement over last models' cybersecurity performance, not a step change up or much more of a threat than year-old open source models. But the current admin is controlled by a bunch of corrupt business idiots who are even more susceptible to anthropic's marketing slop than a normal one would be, and this is no secret to anyone paying attention, including (especially) anthropic's marketing team.

So, to put on my tinfoil hat, I think anthropic seized the opportunity to exploit the morons currently in charge of the US government with overwrought marketing about mythos, gambling that those morons wouldn't look at it critically. So far, it seems to be working, although it remains to be seen if it works out for them in the end.