Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bans DeepSeek, RedNote and other Chinese-backed AI platforms

Gov. Greg Abbott issued a ban on the use of Chinese-backed artificial intelligence and social media apps on Texas government-issued devices Friday afternoon.

The proclamation orders the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Department of Information Resources to add six technologies — DeepSeek, Lemon8, Moomoo, RedNote, Tiger Brokers and Webull — to the state's prohibited technologies list, which bans state employees and contractors from downloading and using the apps on personal and state-owned devices.

In December 2022, Abbott banned the short-form video social media app TikTok. A few months later, he signed Senate Bill 1893, granting him the authority to ban any social media applications or services that pose potential security risks to Texas, including "successor applications" to TikTok or those developed by its parent company, ByteDance Limited. Friday's proclamation includes RedNote and Lemon8 as two of these applications

"Texas will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our state’s critical infrastructure through data-harvesting AI and social media apps," Abbott said in a news release about the order Friday afternoon. "To achieve that mission, I ordered Texas state agencies to ban Chinese government-based AI and social media apps from all state-issued devices. State agencies and employees responsible for handling critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and personal information must be protected from malicious espionage operations by the Chinese Communist Party. Texas will continue to protect and defend our state from hostile foreign actors.”

Read the full proclamation here.

DeepSeek, one of the AI platforms banned through Friday's proclamation, made waves recently after the relatively small Chinese lab launched its R1 model, which is a low-cost artificial intelligence platform that challenges ChatGPT. DeepSeek's launch led U.S. tech companies' stocks to dip, including Elon Musk's Tesla.

The banned apps — including DeepSeek and RedNote, which have in recent weeks surged in popularity in the U.S — join TikTok and more than 20 other apps and hardware manufacturers on the state's prohibited technologies list under the governor's order.

Abbott's proclamation comes amid a resurgence of conversations around Chinese technologies. TikTok went offline briefly last month in response to a congressional mandate that ByteDance sell the platform to an American company or face a total U.S. ban. President Donald Trump, who in his first term had suggested outlawing the app, has indicated he is now open to finding a solution to keep TikTok online.

But the brief TikTok ban led many American users to flock to RedNote — the Mandarin name of which is likely a reference to the father of Chinese communism Mao Zedong — in apparent protest of the U.S. policy.

Some U.S. investors and AI stakeholders described DeepSeek's launch as the 21st century's "Sputnik" moment, sparking further interest in AI development as part of an "arms race" against China and other countries, much like the Soviet Union's 1957 launching of the first Sputnik satellite launched the space race.

On Friday, AI stakeholders and policymakers met in Austin to discuss Texas' role in the growing artificial intelligence industry. State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake — who filed a bill this session aiming to create regulations and safeguards on AI development in Texas — spoke alongside state Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, about the Legislature's role in regulating AI while still promoting its innovation and development.

"We have to consider the fact that in the wrong hands, these (AI) tools could be used to do the opposite," Capriglione said at the conference Friday morning. "We saw just this last week, DeepSeek, this Chinese lower cost LLM launch, and the first thing people realize is, 'Should you even be asking it any questions? Where is the guidance information? Where is your data going?' Those are the kind of things that we have to make sure that we push back against."

Capriglione told the American-Statesman in a Friday evening statement that he supports Abbott's decision, saying protecting Texans from data security threats and foreign surveillance is a top priority. "This ban reinforces Texas’ commitment to defending privacy, national security, and the integrity of our digital infrastructure," he said in the statement.

Gerardo Interiano, senior vice president of government relations and public affairs at self-driving vehicle technology company Aurora, said during the conference Friday that there's a need to regulate AI development, and the DeepSeek news shows what that should look like.

"This is a wake-up call for the United States that we either begin to invest in AI and research and make these significant investments, or we're going to lose this race to China," Interiano said. "There is no doubt that the Chinese are trying to get ahead of the U.S., and as a result, we need to create these frameworks that do not overregulate the industry and that will allow us to continue to innovate, right?"

Abbott issued four directives at the end of 2024 for state agencies related to protecting the state from Chinese-backed companies:

• State agencies and public higher education institutions were asked to harden systems to better protect infrastructure, intellectual property and personal information.
• The Department of Public Safety was asked to target and arrest those "executing CCP (Chinese Communist Party) influence operations like 'Operation Fox Hunt' to forcibly return dissidents to China."
• The Texas Division of Emergency Management and Public Utility Commission of Texas were asked to prepare for potential threats to Texas' infrastructure.
• State agencies were asked to fully divest from China.

American-Statesman staff writer Alex Driggars contributed to this report.