CMU grad’s AI milestone reignites debate over America’s ‘broken’ visa rules

The release of Kimi K3, the latest AI model from Chinese startup Moonshot AI, has turned into a wider conversation about US immigration policy after online users began asking why the company’s co-founder built his business in China rather than America.

Moonshot says Kimi K3 performs nearly as well as Claude Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 Sol. Co-founder Yang Zhilin trained for his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University under Russ Salakhutdinov and William Cohen, finishing in four years while also working at Google Brain and Meta Platforms.

Salakhutdinov’s congratulatory post on X, celebrating Zhilin’s ‘spectacular career,’ drew attention to the fact that Zhilin turned down postdoctoral opportunities reportedly available at Stanford University and MIT, and passed on recruitment interest from Apple, choosing instead to return to China.

The discussion around the F-1 student visa followed quickly. One commenter argued the visa ‘is built around employment, not entrepreneurship,’ saying the rules ‘aren’t designed’ for founders trying to build a startup rather than take a job. Indian-origin entrepreneur Ankit Gupta went further, calling America’s visa policy ‘moronic’ and a factor behind Moonshot ending up Chinese rather than American.

‘The fact that we don’t staple a green card to every AI PhD completed in America is stupid,’ Gupta wrote in a widely shared post.

The debate comes at a time when the US is tightening F-1 visa rules, limiting holders to four years before they must seek an extension through the USCIS.

Wikimedia Commons/by Dllu