Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei clarified in a blog post that his company has "never advocated for a ban on open-weights models," countering criticism following a coalition letter signed last week by Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and others urging policymakers to avoid "premature restrictions." Amodei stated the real focus should be on keeping powerful chips out of authoritarian hands, stopping industrial-scale distillation, and requiring safety testing for all sufficiently capable models. Anthropic previously warned the U.S. Senate about what it described as the "largest known distillation attack" carried out by China's Alibaba against its Claude models. Amodei agreed that open-weight models expand access, strengthen competition, and give customers greater control, but disagreed that they inherently favor cyber defenders or make it easier to develop safeguards. "Protectionist bans would not address my most serious national security concerns," he wrote, supporting targeted legal frameworks rather than blanket restrictions.