OpenAI and Anthropic drew criticism after a report said the companies had quietly lobbied Washington regulators to restrict open source AI models. Critics said the companies should not ask the government to curb developers that release open-weight systems.

The dispute also highlighted disagreement over what rules are actually under discussion. One commentator said nobody is trying to ban open source AI and that the debate is instead about restricting Chinese large language models in some settings. Another, citing Wall Street Journal research, said more than half of Silicon Valley companies have switched to open-weight AI to cut costs and warned that tighter limits would raise enterprise AI expenses.