Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary nominee who testified before the U.S. Senate Tuesday, claimed DeepSeek cheated when its revolutionary new AI model spanked top western AI companies this week.
“They stole things, they broke in, they’ve taken our IP,” Lutnick said, reflecting broader U.S. government concerns about Chinese companies potentially misappropriating U.S. technology.
The White House joined a growing backlash against DeepSeek on Wednesday, assessing potential national security risks tied to its AI. Critics, including Western firms, accuse the Chinese upstart of rule-breaking, espionage, and market manipulation.
It started late Monday after a gruesome day in tech stocks when OpenAI floated the idea that DeepSeek had used a technique called “distillation” (using a big model as an example to guide the answers provided by smaller models) to extract knowledge from its models—a violation of their terms of service.
David Sacks, Donald Trump’s AI adviser, piled on, adding that there was “substantial evidence” of DeepSeek “sucking knowledge” out of OpenAI’s technology.
The ChatGPT maker confirmed that they are investigating the issue.
“We are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more,” an OpenAI spokesperson
