{"id":283373,"date":"2026-02-14T05:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283373\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T05:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T05:37:11","slug":"why-openai-says-it-isnt-spending-on-superpacs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283373\/","title":{"rendered":"Why OpenAI says it isn\u2019t spending on SuperPACs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n AI company Anthropic announced this week it is giving $20 million<\/a> to a political group campaigning for more regulation of the technology \u2013 but its main rival, OpenAI, is telling its employees it won\u2019t be making similar donations.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a memo to staff on Thursday, OpenAI\u2019s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said that while OpenAI allows its employees to \u201cexpress their ideological beliefs in terms of who they support,\u201d the company itself won\u2019t be making similar moves anytime soon.\n <\/p>\n

\n OpenAI is not contributing to political action committees or 501(c)(4) social-welfare nonprofits because OpenAI wants to retain control of its political spending, Lehane told CNN in an interview.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe do believe it\u2019s really important that this issue transcends partisan politics,\u201d Lehane said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The stakes are especially high this year. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are reportedly mulling what could be blockbuster initial public offerings this year, while Congress is working to craft the rules of the road for industry for the next decade or longer. And as the midterm elections approach, voters are increasingly worried about the consequences of AI development, from energy bills to privacy to job loss.\n <\/p>\n

\n Though OpenAI is not making super PAC donations, its executives and biggest investors have made major contributions. President and co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, have donated $25 million to a super PAC that supports President Donald Trump.\n <\/p>\n

\n Brockman, as well as several of OpenAI\u2019s top investors, have collectively donated more than $100 million to a bipartisan super PAC called Leading the Future that advocates against state-level AI regulation in favor of a national regulatory framework. The grouphas already paid for ads<\/a> opposing New York State Assemblyman Alex Bores, who is running in New York\u2019s 12th congressional district as an outspoken voice for AI guardrails.\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic was founded with a focus on AI safety and often highlights the need for regulation in AI development. CEO Dario Amodei regularly writes long essays and gives interviews about the risks posed by AI.\n <\/p>\n

\n The company said this week it is donating to the Public First Action super PAC, a bipartisan group that advocates for AI regulation, because they \u201cdon\u2019t want to sit on the sideline\u201d while AI regulation is being developed.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201c(W)e need good policy: flexible regulation that allows us to reap the benefits of AI, keep the risks in check, and keep America ahead in the AI race,\u201d Anthropic wrote<\/a> in their announcement. \u201cThat means keeping critical AI technology out of the hands of America\u2019s adversaries, maintaining meaningful safeguards, promoting job growth, protecting children, and demanding real transparency from the companies building the most powerful AI models.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But Anthropic\u2019s position has placed them in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. David Sacks, the White House\u2019s AI czar, blamed Anthropic last year for \u201cthe state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the ecosystem. \u201cAnthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,\u201d he wrote<\/a> on X.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last year Trump signed an executive order<\/a> to prevent states from enacting their own laws regulating AI in favor of a single national policy that has yet to be established.\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic and OpenAI\u2019s differing positions on AI regulation are an extension of their longstanding rivalry, which exploded into public view<\/a> last week when Anthropic ran a SuperBowl ad about their ad-free chatbot, Claude \u2013 just days before OpenAI started showing some users ads in their ChatGPT conversations this week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI company Anthropic announced this week it is giving $20 million to a political group campaigning for more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-283373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}