Alibaba (BABA) shares dropped 4% during early afternoon trading on Friday after the Financial Times reported on a White House memo claiming the China-based tech and e-commerce giant was helping the Chinese military conduct “operations” against targets in the U.S.
The memo said Alibaba has provided the Chinese government and the People’s Liberation Army with access to customer data, including payment records, IP addresses, artificial intelligence-related services, and WiFi information, according to the report. Alibaba also allegedly provided information on software vulnerabilities.
However, Alibaba denied the accusations.
“The claims purportedly based on U.S. intelligence that was leaked by your source are complete nonsense,” Alibaba responded, according to the report. “This is plainly an attempt to manipulate public opinion and malign Alibaba.”
The memo, which was dated November 1, did not provide details on what or whom in the U.S. had been targeted.
The memo surfaced one day after Anthropic (ANTHRO) released a report of how it had disrupted an AI-fueled cyberattack by hackers based in China back in mid-September.