Sources: OpenAI and Anthropic quietly lobby Washington regulators to restrict open-source AI models, even as Sam Altman publicly says he supports open source AI

Anthropic and OpenAI are clashing with the rest of the tech industry over whether “open-source” models from China should be freely available or restricted.

New York Times 2026-07-25

Context & Ripple Effects

This is a sharper continuation of OpenAI’s earlier call for U.S. restrictions on PRC-produced models and equipment, shifting the argument from a named supplier toward the availability of open-weight models more broadly.

It also extends a pattern in which leading labs coordinate around frontier-model risks, including information-sharing to detect adversarial distillation. The dispute now puts those labs at odds with technology companies that view broadly available models as an innovation and deployment asset.

First-order effects

OpenAI and Anthropic’s position adds influential lab voices to Washington’s consideration of restrictions on Chinese open-source models, while exposing tension with Altman’s public support for open source.
Developers and companies relying on Chinese open-source models face a less certain U.S. policy environment; the immediate disagreement is over whether such access should remain broadly available.

Second-order effects

Other AI companies may be pressed to distinguish between support for open model development and support for unrestricted access to foreign-made models, making “open source” a more contested policy category.
If regulators adopt limits, model distributors and enterprise users would need to assess provenance and access rules alongside technical performance, potentially favoring controlled model channels.

Third-order effects

The episode points toward model access becoming a geopolitical control point: governments may increasingly treat weights, distribution, and origin as strategic infrastructure rather than merely software licensing choices.
If leading labs continue pairing safety arguments with access restrictions, the AI market could tilt toward state-compatible, centrally governed distribution—though the outcome depends on regulatory action and industry resistance.

The trend: AI policy is moving from oversight of model behavior toward control of who can distribute and use strategically significant models across borders.

Discussion

@mikeisaac Rat King on x
here's a story about the “open vs closed” debate over the past few weeks in the tech industry and how, depending on who you ask, the global economy and national security could be at stake w/ @kateconger @AnaSwanson and meaghan tobin https://www.nytimes.com/...
@finkd Mark Zuckerberg on x
Open source is a positive and important force for both empowering people and preventing centralization. Proud to support this.
@wowbaggert @wowbaggert on bluesky
These guys both know that their customers are going to migrate to cheaper self hosted open models the second they try to charge them the actual cost of their opex. — This is rank anti-competitive maneuvering.
@jensenhuang Jensen Huang on x
For my first post, I'm sharing a letter @NVIDIA signed on why open models matter. AI will transform every industry, power every company, and be built by every country. Open models strengthen safety and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty. Th…
@satyanadella Satya Nadella on x
Open-weight models are essential to a healthy AI ecosystem. Together with others across our industry, we are outlining a path for open-weight models to strengthen American competitiveness and expand economic opportunity, while protecting national security. https://www.microsoft.c…
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
google spent the week fence sitting until this morning, now looks like they too want to be seen as pro open source now that everyone else signed the jensen letter
@davidsacks David Sacks on x
Nobody is saying that all software has to be open source. What they're saying is that open-weight AI should be allowed. By implication, they're rejecting your company's incessant machinations to kneecap the open model ecosystem. Read the room.
@sundarpichai Sundar Pichai on x
Very happy to support this on behalf of Google. We have long benefited from open source, are big contributors to open source and in fact have consistently made open weights models with Gemma available from @GoogleDeepMind @demishassabis . Onwards!
@naval @naval on x
@signulll 😂
@signulll @signulll on x
@naval i'm excited for the first open weight model from ISIS. maybe call it llama bin laden - 7b?
@naval @naval on x
It doesn't matter if open source software is developed by the CCP, the NSA, the Jews, ISIS, MAGA, ANTIFA, or the Illuminati. It's open source - just audit and run it yourself. They can send me gold bricks too, as long as they're at it.
@emollick Ethan Mollick on x
The open weights models discussion would be much less fraught if all the frontier closed models weren't developed in the US and all the frontier open models weren't developed in China. It means that discussions over openness and AI are inevitability about a lot of other things.
@aftfuture @aftfuture on x
Open weights are not a sideshow in the AI race. They are part of how America wins it. …
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
other thing i would say: Meta signing this given their roadmap over the past year re: open source was a surprise to me [image]
@levie Aaron Levie on x
Very happy to have Box support this letter. We're big believers in the power of open source overall and open weights AI. …
@ccatalini Christian Catalini on x
“openness may be one of the most important paths to AI safety and security” — @a16z, @bfl_ai, @Box, @CrowdStrike, @Dell, @huggingface, @IBM, @linuxfoundation, @Meta, @Microsoft, @MistralAI, @mozilla, @nvidia, @PalantirTech, @perplexity_ai, @Replit, @ycombinator + more [image]
@tedunderwood.com Ted Underwood on bluesky
Link to letter above; here's the CNBC story. If that's the logo I think it is, my interpretation would be “if you can't beat them join them” — www.cnbc.com/2026/07/24/n...
@wittywebhandle Blaise Ulysse Bernard Collins on bluesky
And the ‘Frontier’ AI Civil War begins in earnest — The companies that will not immediately die when Proprietary Models are no longer valuable: — Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft — And those that will: — Google, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic — Despite this schism; Both lanes are still…
r/singularity r on reddit
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta warn against ‘premature restrictions’ of open-weight models
r/politics r on reddit
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta warn against ‘premature restrictions’ of open-weight models
r/stupidpol r on reddit
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta (and Palantir) warn against ‘premature restrictions’ of open-weight models
@thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x
It's funny that this whole fracas kicked off because there was one eval which said that Kimi3 was near-frontier at frontend design work (probably one of the least important metrics tbh).
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
NYTimes: “OpenAI and Anthropic have lobbied regulators in Washington to restrict open-source A.I. models …
@mattzeitlin Matthew Zeitlin on x
Oh so innovation being driven by quasi monopoly returns accruing to companies run by their founders is bad now? I thought we had all read Zero to One?
@angelbrodin Angel on x
this is the dumbest take i've seen all week, on par with ppl who say “if you care about homelessness then let them live in your house.” just an incredibly dumb purity test it's not too late to delete this my man
@thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x
Yesterday they were signing open letters. Today they are yelling at people to “read the room. VCs have recreated BlueSky-politics from first principles.
@mononofu Julian Schrittwieser on x
I'm so excited that @JensenHuang is a believer in open source now, looking forward to the CUDA and GPU driver open source release!
@bgurley Bill Gurley on x
Excited to see Anthropic acknowledge the real problem with open is it competes with their corporate economic strategy. The “awareness” here is revealing. When you build the biggest private market cap ever, you should expect competition. I'm sure the secondaries have been nice.

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