Three Capitals, Three AI Moves: Subpoenas, Export Controls, and a Bus Tour

Washington reaches for the subpoena

The sharpest policy move of the week came from the FTC, which Mayfield's weekly note reports has issued subpoenas to OpenAI and Anthropic as part of an investigation into AI safety and consumer protection. The timing matters: Anthropic is operating at a scale that invites that scrutiny. The All-In hosts projected that Anthropic and OpenAI will consume 60 percent of all compute capacity deployed globally over the next year, described the pair as a foundation-model duopoly, and reported Anthropic's third-quarter revenue at $16.8 billion with net revenue retention reported at 900 percent. The hosts also said Anthropic is planning an IPO around Thanksgiving, with its founders holding roughly 2.5 percent each. m:…9590 m:…1487

Anthropic's own public posture adds texture: the All-In hosts said the company published a blog post claiming it has eliminated 90 to 99 percent of the distillation of its models. Whether the FTC's questions touch that commercial moat directly is unknown — but the subpoena puts the labs' safety claims and their business models under the same microscope. m:…1487

The open-weight fight

The domestic policy fight with the most industry heat is over open-weight models. The All-In hosts said Anthropic published a blog post warning that rogue small language models could propagate themselves on IoT devices — and that in July the company lobbied the government to intervene against industrial-scale distillation of its models by competitors. Fifty major companies, including NVIDIA, Dell, Microsoft, and Andreessen Horowitz, signed an open letter opposing government restrictions on open-weight models, and the administration rejected Anthropic's requested approach. The hosts noted the legal baseline: distilling a model is not illegal, though it may violate terms of service. m:…1487

Beijing writes the export list

While Washington subpoenas and lobbies, Beijing writes rules. Mayfield reports that China has proposed new export controls on 23 AI technologies. It is the mirror image of the U.S. debate: where Washington argues about whether models should be open, Beijing is deciding which AI capabilities can leave the country at all. For founders and investors, the practical effect is the same — the compliance surface for AI products now spans both export regimes. m:…9590

The Chamber's counter-push

The business lobby's answer arrived on Bloomberg, where U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Suzanne Clark said companies' top demand is regulatory certainty: "what they talk a lot about is needing certainty. They want to invest in the United States. They want to onshore. They need certainty." Permitting reform topped the list, alongside more legal immigration to ease labor shortages and lower tariffs with more trade agreements. The Chamber is taking the case on the road with a 20-state bus tour promoting pro-business candidates — and pushing back on what Clark described, citing a recent Gallup poll, as a rising positive popularity for socialism: "we want to remind people that that's never worked in any country that's ever tried it." Business leaders, she added, remain optimistic about AI's economic potential. m:…5940

Clark also connected the AI debate to local politics, advising data center operators to work through local chambers on community benefit arrangements to counter public opposition — the permitting fight for compute is now a neighborhood fight too. m:…5940