Rep. Ro Khanna demands AI firms disclose Chinese efforts to access model weights

#What happened

Congressman Ro Khanna — a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley and serves as ranking member on the House China Select Committee — sent letters, dated Wednesday, to the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and SpaceXAI, asking them to provide data on all known efforts by China or other hostile actors to illegally access their prized model weights. The letters, seen by Reuters and not previously reported, also requested information on the cybersecurity measures in place at the AI firms to combat such theft. The Chinese Embassy in Washington and the companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OpenAI and Anthropic have reported multiple instances of Chinese AI firms like Moonshot or DeepSeek "distilling" their AI models, but there are few known cases of any bad actor stealing model weights — the exact parameters and code that make an AI model operate.

#Why it matters

Khanna warned in the letters: "The theft of an advanced model weight by a hostile non-state actor could endanger all of humanity, and the theft of such a model weight by (China) could erode America's AI lead with the stroke of a keyboard." He added: "Never before have the national security and economic prospects of a nation been so dependent on the cybersecurity of a small handful of companies." In an interview about the letters, Khanna said: "I know these guys. You cannot trust Silicon Valley tech billionaires to write the rules to keep us safe." The letters land amid mounting pressure on US AI giants — and the Trump administration — to rein in the technology, with the FTC opening an industry-wide probe and OpenAI delaying its next flagship model over safety concerns.

#Sources

Reuters — Leading Democrat asks AI firms for data on any Chinese access to sensitive code: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/leading-democrat-asks-ai-firms-data-any-chinese-access-sensitive-code-2026-10-01/