Verdict: "Le Chaton Fat" is a viral meme and satirical joke.
Mistral never released or suspended a model by that name.[10] [15] The entire narrative is a community-driven joke spreading across X and Reddit.
Origins and Spread of the Meme
The name is a playful mashup of Mistral’s actual chatbot interface, "Le Chat," and the phrase "fat kitten." The joke gained traction following comments by French President Emmanuel Macron regarding France's AI capabilities.[11] Social media users began posting fake, increasingly absurd specifications for this fictional model, claiming it was a 24- or 30-trillion parameter Mixture of Experts (MoE) model with a 1-million token context window and native LaTeX rendering.[8] [10] The meme eventually escalated into further parodies, such as an imaginary 60-trillion parameter "Le Chaton Plus Grand" [12], and even spawned a cryptocurrency meme coin.[11]
The "Suspended" or Deleted Post Rumor
The rumor that the model was "suspended" likely stems from reports that Mistral briefly posted—and then deleted—a joke announcement for a fictional 24-trillion-parameter model featuring French-cat imagery.[14] [16] Regardless of whether a joke post was briefly made by the company, there was never an actual model or project behind it.
In reality, Mistral's official documentation lists real models such as Mistral Large 3 (which has 675 billion total parameters) and Ministral 3.[15] [17] "Le Chaton Fat" remains nothing more than a widespread internet hallucination and community shitpost.
