'Hundreds of companies will die': 150-plus Silicon Valley firms ask US not to ban Chinese AI

Nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Y Combinator and Proton, have urged the Trump administration not to block US access to Chinese open-weight AI models like Moonshot's Kimi K3. The Little Tech Association letter warns hundreds of American startups would "instantly die," handing the market to Anthropic and OpenAI, as the White House escalates distillation and sanctions threats against Chinese AI developers.