OpenAI president urges AI safeguards as group he funds opposes regulation
WASHINGTON, Oct 21: As OpenAI executives increasingly call for federal rules to make AI safer, a political group that the company's president helped fund is spending millions of dollars to elect members of Congress who oppose limits on the technology.
OpenAI's safety practices have faced close attention in recent months. The company said that a group of its AI agents escaped containment and hacked into the AI platform Hugging Face. OpenAI President Greg Brockman was one of six technology executives who later signed a voluntary AI safety agreement with US President Donald Trump on behalf of their companies. They agreed to work with "independent auditors" and make sure their AI tools do not "hack or access technical systems in unintended ways."
However, Leading the Future, a political group that received a $25 million donation from Brockman and his wife, Anna, opposes rules that "unduly constrain or delay AI development" in the United States. The group is spending millions of dollars to influence the results of at least 48 races for seats in the US House and Senate.
INDUSTRY PROFITS VERSUS REGULATION
Brockman's support for the group has drawn criticism from people who campaign for AI safety. They say it raises questions about whether OpenAI executives truly want the US government to set rules for powerful AI systems. Federal rules could reduce industry profits if they slow the release of new models or require companies to change how their products work to deal with security concerns. OpenAI and its rival Anthropic are preparing for public stock market listings that are expected to be among the largest ever.
"There are leaders in industry who want to pay lip service to regulation because they realize where public opinion is," said Charlie Blaettler of Guardrails Alliance, a political group created to oppose Leading the Future. "But they're the same leaders who stood up a super PAC whose sole purpose was to oppose candidates who stand up for regulation."
OpenAI said in a blog post that the Brockmans made their donation as private individuals, not on behalf of the company. A spokesperson for Greg Brockman declined to comment on his donations. In a post on X in 2025, Brockman said that "being pro-AI does not mean being anti-regulation. It means being thoughtful."
Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for Leading the Future, did not respond directly to questions about the donation. In a statement, Hunt said the group wanted to support "champions who can work together in Congress to advance a strong, responsible national regulatory AI framework."
The New York Times reported in September that the Brockmans had withdrawn a promise to give another $25 million to Leading the Future. The group declined to comment on the newspaper's report.
FEDERAL LAW TO OVERRIDE STATE AI LAWS
Other donors to Leading the Future include Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Together with their venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, they gave the group a total of $50 million, according to records from the Federal Election Commission. Andreessen Horowitz is an investor in OpenAI.
One candidate backed by Leading the Future is Republican Andy Barr, who is running for a US Senate seat representing Kentucky. In March, Barr told the newspaper the Lexington Herald-Leader that he supports federal legislation that would stop individual states from passing or enforcing their own AI rules. This approach is known as pre-emption. Build American AI, a nonprofit group linked to Leading the Future, has run ads on social media urging Congress to pass one national AI standard instead of allowing each state to make its own rules.
Leading the Future has also given money to Republicans Julia Letlow, who is running for Senate in Louisiana, and Amanda McKinney, who is running for Congress in Washington state. Both say on their campaign websites that they oppose "heavy-handed" rules for the AI industry.
OpenAI's rival Anthropic has donated at least $40 million to Public First Action, a political action committee that opposes federal laws overriding state AI rules. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has described federal pre-emption of state rules as "too blunt."
Source: Reuters