Commentary
The US government is skating close to its own Jack Ma moment, when a government wounds a tech leader seemingly out of spite, say these New York Times writers.
Jack Ma, Alibaba co-founder, is a lesson for the US not to make the same mistakes as China to win the AI future. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
30 Jun 2026 05:58AM
NEW YORK: A globally recognisable tech executive, high-spirited from preparing for a public offering, offers imprudent remarks criticising the government. The state strikes back harder than anyone expects. Overnight, the bargain between a skyrocketing sector of the economy and the government is shattered.If you think this story could be about Anthropic, you’re only half right. In 2020, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma found himself in the doghouse after he publicly rebuked Chinese regulators. Citing regulatory concerns, the authorities cancelled the public offering of Ant Group, another company Mr Ma helped found, and subsequently unleashed a regulatory storm that left few Chinese tech companies untouched.The United States government is skating close to its own Jack Ma moment, when a government wounds a tech leader seemingly out of spite. Self-destructive American actions, not Chinese competition, may be the most significant threat to the evolution of artificial intelligence for years to come, long after the government and Anthropic resolve their current dispute.On Jun 9, Anthropic released its model Fable 5, an adapted version of its powerful Mythos model, which has incredible capacity to find vulnerabilities in software. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei even said that companies that used Mythos had called it a “superweapon”. Three days later, the US government issued an export control directive blocking use of Fable 5 by foreigners and non-citizens – including some of Anthropic’s own employees – which prompted Anthropic to disable all access to the model.
