>I guess I don't know what "national champion" means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_champions

>Do they receive different legal treatment from other similar companies? If so, that would be a worrying signal. A common feature of fascism being present doesn't mean you've definitely got fascism, but it does raise a pretty big red flag.

They definitely get assistance from the government. Where that crosses into "different legal treatment" is up to you, though personally I think the distinction (if any) isn't really worth much. The original claim was "Most favored companies", not "are totally exempt from the law". In the case of openai, it's not really clear whether any laws have been broken, because despite all the cries over "they hacked people!", the question of intent would make any prosecution tricky. Not to mention there's similar cries about AI companies in general violating copyright laws, so if the implication is that openai gets to break laws scott free but anthropic doesn't, that really falls flat.