The joint letter, signed by Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, Palantir, Andreessen Horowitz, Hugging Face, Perplexity and the Linux Foundation, urges U.S. policymakers to avoid rules that could limit access to open-weight AI. Signatories say those models help expand innovation, improve cybersecurity and keep American AI development competitive as Chinese rivals rapidly advance. His remarks came days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said officials were reviewing whether Chinese AI companies trained their models using stolen U.S. intellectual property. Distillation sparks dispute The letter also challenges calls to restrict AI distillation, a technique that trains one model using another model’s outputs. Elon Musk reposted it on X, saying it had his “full support,” although SpaceX did not officially sign the document.