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 limits could raise AI costs and entrench incumbents.
The Trump administration is investigating Chinese AI firm Moonshot and weighing sanctions or new limits on foreign-made open-source models after the release of Kimi K3 intensified accusations that Chinese companies copied US systems through “distillation.” White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios said Moonshot may also have sidestepped US export controls on Nvidia chips. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is formally probing Chinese firms including Moonshot, while Anthropic has accused Moonshot, DeepSeek and MiniMax of industrial-scale distillation of its Claude models. A backlash is building in the US tech sector, with 179 startups and companies including Microsoft, Meta, Mistral and Perplexity urging restraint.