Alibaba (BABA) Stock Blocks Claude Code Access Over Backdoor Security Fears

TLDR

• Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code starting July 10, citing alleged backdoor security risks.
• BABA stock has been hovering around $96.10, already under pressure from insider selling and legal troubles.
• The ban follows Anthropic’s accusation that Alibaba ran the largest AI distillation attack in history using 25,000 fake accounts.
• Other firms including Meta, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan have also restricted Claude access in recent weeks.
• ByteDance and Ant Group have separately cut ties with Claude after Anthropic updated its terms of service banning use from restricted regions including China.

Alibaba (BABA) is set to block employees from using Anthropic’s Claude Code starting July 10, according to a person familiar with the decision. The company placed the AI coding tool on an internal high-risk list, citing concerns about embedded backdoors that could allow unauthorized outside access to its systems.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, BABA

BABA stock was hovering around $96.10 at the time of reporting, already weighed down by recent insider selling and ongoing legal issues.

No official statement has been issued by Alibaba, and the full scope of the restriction has not been publicly disclosed.

The timing is hard to ignore. The ban comes just months after Anthropic filed a complaint accusing Alibaba of running what it called the largest AI distillation attack ever carried out against its Claude models.

Anthropic alleged that Alibaba deployed roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to bombard Claude with millions of requests. The outputs were then allegedly used to train Alibaba’s own Qwen AI models — a direct violation of Anthropic’s terms of service.

Enterprise Access to Claude Keeps Shrinking

Alibaba is not alone. Just last week, Meta shut down both Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex for its employees, saying it was concerned that AI-generated outputs could end up training competing models.

Goldman Sachs restricted Claude access for its Hong Kong operations back in April. JPMorgan followed in June, with both banks pointing to licensing terms and data-security concerns as the reason.

Anthropic later clarified to the Financial Times that Claude was never officially supported in Hong Kong, while JPMorgan declined to comment on the matter.

The pattern is clear: Claude is losing ground inside major enterprise environments, and not just in China.

Chinese Tech Firms Pull Back From Claude

ByteDance removed Claude models from its Singapore-based coding app, Trae, in 2025 after Anthropic began enforcing restrictions on Chinese-owned firms.

Ant Group was also affected when Anthropic clamped down on corporate Claude accounts that had been distributed to employees through its Singapore intranet.

Both exits followed Anthropic’s updated terms of service, which explicitly banned firms from using Claude in or through restricted regions, including China.

The Alibaba ban lands during a turbulent stretch for Anthropic. On July 1, the company restored public access to its Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after U.S. authorities lifted export restrictions that had forced a suspension in June.

Anthropic said it resumed deployment following talks with U.S. officials and added new classifiers to detect and block cybersecurity-related tasks. The company also announced expanded cooperation with the U.S. government on model testing, safety evaluations, and misuse tracking.

Wall Street remains bullish on BABA despite the noise. Fourteen analysts tracked by TipRanks rate it a Strong Buy, with a 12-month average price target of $194.94 — implying over 100% upside from current levels.

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