Open-weights letter grows as Google and OpenAI sign on
The July 24 open-weights letter has expanded beyond Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta, with updated signatories now including Google and OpenAI while Anthropic remains absent.
The letter
A coalition of US technology companies, led at launch by Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta and Palantir, published an open letter on July 24 urging policymakers to avoid "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models. The signatories argued that sweeping limits would stifle domestic competition and drive innovation overseas, and that open weights bolster US competitiveness, cybersecurity and sovereignty. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his debut X post to amplify the letter, and Microsoft's Satya Nadella endorsed the message the same day.
The list changed fast
The first version carried roughly 25 names, including Meta, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, CrowdStrike, Palantir, Hugging Face, Mistral, Mozilla, the Linux Foundation, Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator. The list then kept expanding. The updated version now includes Google and OpenAI as well, turning what first looked like a chipmaker/open-source coalition into a broader industry position. Anthropic remains the most visible major frontier-lab holdout.
The policy backdrop
The letter lands as Washington weighs curbs targeting Chinese open-weight models. The signatories contend that concerns about unlawful model distillation should be handled through "targeted legal and commercial frameworks" rather than blanket bans on techniques central to modern AI development. The debate sharpened after Hugging Face disclosed it had leaned on Z.ai's open-weight GLM 5.2 to help contain a cyberattack that OpenAI described as unprecedented, a case both camps now cite for opposite conclusions.
Why it matters
The fight over open-weight regulation is becoming the defining US AI-policy battle of 2026. Google and OpenAI joining the letter changes the signal: support for open-weight policy is no longer limited to companies whose business models obviously benefit from downloadable models. How Washington draws the line between curbing Chinese models and preserving American open-source ecosystems will shape who can build on, fine-tune and distribute frontier-adjacent models, and whether the next wave of AI startups is founded inside or outside the United States.