US probes Moonshot as Trump weighs curbs on Chinese AI models
What's new: 179 startups and firms including Microsoft and Meta pushed back, warning restrictions could raise AI costs and lock in US incumbents.
The Trump administration is investigating Chinese AI company Moonshot and weighing sanctions or broader curbs on foreign-made open-weight models after the release of its Kimi K3 system sharpened US concerns over AI competition with China. White House officials contend Moonshot copied capabilities from Anthropic’s Claude models through large-scale “distillation” and may have sidestepped US export controls on Nvidia chips. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is examining the chip issue, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has threatened sanctions. The debate has split the US tech sector: Anthropic has urged a tougher response, but 179 startups and major companies including Microsoft, Meta, Mistral and Perplexity argued limits on overseas models could hurt competition and saddle smaller developers with higher costs.