Two US House Committee Chairs Press DoorDash Over Its Use of Chinese AI Model Kimi K2.6
Two US House committee chairs have asked DoorDash to explain its internal testing of the Chinese open-weight AI model Kimi K2.6 and to provide security-related materials by August 14. In a July 31 letter to DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Xu, Representatives John Moolenaar and Andrew Garbarino also required executives to appear before Congress on August 21. The inquiry followed disclosures by co-founder Andy Fang and DoorDash's AI research lab that the model was used for lower-level AI tasks and offered cost and performance advantages over some Anthropic models. DoorDash said it supports US leadership in AI and looks forward to discussing safe, responsible use of AI with the committees.
DoorDash has been asked by two US House committees to provide further information for a security review after testing the Chinese artificial-intelligence model Kimi K2.6 in its internal systems. In a July 31, 2026 letter, Representative John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Andrew Garbarino, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, jointly wrote to DoorDash co-founder and chief executive Tony Xu, asking the company to explain in detail whether it had integrated Chinese-developed open-weight AI models and what security safeguards were in place.
The inquiry was triggered by a post on social media platform X by DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang, in which he disclosed that the company had assigned some lower-level AI tasks to Kimi K2.6, developed by Moonshot AI. DoorDash's AI research laboratory also said in a post that Kimi K2.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 outperformed other Anthropic models it had previously used, and did so at a lower cost than using the Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.8 harness.
The committees asked DoorDash to submit by August 14 a list of the Chinese AI models used, safety test results, risk assessments, internal decision documents, usage costs and alternatives, and to state whether it had provided developers with US user information, commercial information, or other sensitive information during model training, fine-tuning, and deployment. Relevant executives were required to appear before Congress on August 21 to provide in-person explanations.
A DoorDash spokesperson said the company is proud to support US leadership in AI and is committed to ensuring that AI benefits not only large companies but also small and medium-sized businesses. The company said it looks forward to discussing with the committees how to use AI safely and responsibly, including frontier models and open-weight models developed in the United States.
Why this event matters
The event has a measured impact on 1 industry. The strongest current signal is mixed for Artificial Intelligence, with intensity 40/100 and 60% confidence over a medium term horizon.
Impact figures are analytical estimates that combine direction, intensity, confidence and event importance. They are not investment advice.