Alibaba Shares Slide to 52-Week Low on Nasdaq; Anthropic’s AI Theft Accusation, Pentagon Blacklist Pile Pressure on BABA

New York, June 25: Alibaba Group Holding’s American Depositary Shares ended Wednesday’s session at a 52-week low on the Nasdaq, closing near $99.80, as a confluence of damaging headline risks — a formal AI theft accusation from US company Anthropic, an ongoing Pentagon military blacklist lawsuit, and a price target cut from Daiwa — converged to drive sustained selling through the session. The stock is now down more than 30% year-to-date, a staggering retreat from its 52-week high of $192.67 hit in October 2025. 

The intraday chart told the full story of a stock under unrelenting pressure. BABA fluctuated within a day range of $99.10 to $101.67, opening around $102 in pre-market before slipping steadily from the opening bell. The stock briefly found support near $100.50 through the morning but failed to hold any recovery attempt, grinding lower through the afternoon before touching its session low near $99.10 around 4:00 pm.  

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Volume spiked sharply around the close and again in after-hours, a pattern consistent with institutional selling triggered by late-breaking negative news. BABA slid a further 2.9% in after-hours trading to $96.91, pushing the stock to levels not seen since before its 2025 AI-driven rally.  

Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of Largest-Ever AI Extraction Campaign 

The most explosive development came from a BBC report on a letter sent by US AI company Anthropic to members of the US Congress, accusing Alibaba of conducting what it described as the largest known distillation attack ever carried out against the firm.  

According to the BBC report, Anthropic alleged that Alibaba and its AI unit conducted the largest known distillation attack on the company to date, generating over 28.8 million exchanges with its Claude AI model through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts between April 22 and June 5, 2026. The BBC reported that the letter, dated June 10 and addressed to US Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, accused operators linked to Alibaba of carrying out these attacks on an industrial scale — using a technique known as “distillation,” where answers extracted from a stronger AI model are used to train a weaker one, effectively harvesting expensive research and development capabilities at a fraction of their original cost.  

The BBC report further stated that Anthropic urged Congress to penalise companies behind such attacks and ramp up measures to prevent US technology from being transferred in this manner. Alibaba’s targeted capabilities reportedly included Claude’s ability to handle longer, complex tasks and its decision-making architecture — among the model’s most commercially valuable functions. Alibaba had not issued a formal response at the time of publication. 

Adding to the pressure, Alibaba has also sued the US Department of Defence, seeking to be removed from a Pentagon blacklist of companies allegedly linked to China’s military, a designation that carries significant reputational and commercial consequences for the company’s ambitions in global markets. Daiwa lowered its price target on Alibaba to $175 from $200, maintaining a Buy rating but acknowledging headwinds from the 6.18 shopping festival performance. With the stock now trading near $100 and after-hours pressure pushing it toward $96, Alibaba’s wall of worry has rarely been higher. 

Source: 

• https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/baba