{"id":220088,"date":"2025-10-12T22:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220088\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T22:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:05:15","slug":"a-3-person-policy-nonprofit-that-worked-on-californias-ai-safety-law-is-publicly-accusing-openai-of-intimidation-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220088\/","title":{"rendered":"A 3-person policy nonprofit that worked on California\u2019s AI safety law is publicly accusing OpenAI of intimidation tactics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathan Calvin, the 29-year-old general counsel of Encode\u2014a small AI policy nonprofit with just three full-time employees\u2014published a viral thread<\/a> on X Friday accusing OpenAI of using intimidation tactics to undermine California\u2019s SB 53<\/a>, the California Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, while it was still being debated. He also alleged that OpenAI used its ongoing legal battle with Elon Musk<\/a> as a pretext to target and intimidate critics, including Encode, which it implied was secretly funded by Musk.<\/p>\n

Calvin\u2019s thread quickly drew widespread attention, including from inside OpenAI itself. Joshua Achiam, the company\u2019s head of mission alignment, weighed in on X<\/a> with his own thread, written in a personal capacity, starting by saying, \u201cAt what is possibly a risk to my whole career I will say: this doesn\u2019t seem great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former OpenAI employees and prominent AI safety researchers also joined the conversation, many expressing concern over the company\u2019s alleged tactics. Helen Toner, the former OpenAI board member who resigned after a failed 2023 effort to oust <\/a>CEO Sam Altman, wrote<\/a> that some things the company does are great, but \u201cthe dishonesty & intimidation tactics in their policy work are really not.\u201d<\/p>\n

And at least one other nonprofit founder also weighed in: Tyler Johnston, founder of AI watchdog group the Midas Project, responded to Calvin\u2019s thread with his own<\/a>, saying: \u201c[I] got a knock at my door in Oklahoma with a demand for every text\/email\/document that, in the \u2018broadest sense permitted,\u2019 relates to OpenAI\u2019s governance and investors.\u201d As with Calvin, he added, he received the personal subpoena, and the Midas Project was also served.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad they just asked if I\u2019m funded by Musk, I would have been happy to give them a simple \u2018man I wish\u2019 and call it a day,\u201d he wrote. \u201cInstead, they asked for what was, practically speaking, a list of every journalist, congressional office, partner organization, former employee, and member of the public we\u2019d spoken to about their restructuring.\u201d<\/p>\n

OpenAI referred Fortune to a post by chief strategy officer Jason Kwon<\/a> on Friday in which Kwon said Encode\u2019s decision to support Musk in the lawsuit, and the organization\u2019s not \u201cfully disclosed\u201d funding, \u201craises legitimate questions about what is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to know, and still are curious to know, whether Encode is working in collaboration with third parties who have a commercial competitive interest adverse to OpenAI,\u201d Kwon wrote, noting that subpoenas are a standard method of gathering information in any litigation. \u201cThe stated narrative makes it sound like something it wasn\u2019t.\u201d Kwon included an excerpt of the subpoena that he said showed all the requests for documents OpenAI made.<\/p>\n

As reported by the San Francisco Standard<\/a> in September, Calvin was served with a subpoena from OpenAI in August, delivered by a sheriff\u2019s deputy as he and his wife were sitting down to dinner. Encode, the organization he works for, was also served. The article reported that OpenAI appeared concerned that some of its most vocal critics were being funded by Elon Musk and other billionaire competitors\u2014and was targeting those nonprofit groups despite offering little evidence to support the claim.<\/p>\n

Calvin wrote Friday that Encode\u2014which he emphasized is not funded by Musk\u2014had criticized OpenAI\u2019s restructuring and worked on AI regulations, including SB 53. In the subpoena, OpenAI asked for all of Calvin\u2019s private communications on SB 53.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe OpenAI used the pretext of their lawsuit against Elon Musk to intimidate their critics and imply that Elon is behind all of them,\u201d he said, referring to the ongoing legal battle between OpenAI and Musk over the company\u2019s original nonprofit mission and governance. Encode had filed an amicus brief in the case supporting some of Musk\u2019s arguments.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with Fortune, Calvin emphasized that what has not been sufficiently covered is how inappropriate OpenAI\u2019s actions were in connection with SB 53, which was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> at the end of September. The law requires certain developers of \u201cfrontier\u201d AI models to publish a public frontier AI framework and a transparency report when deploying or substantially modifying a model, report critical safety incidents to the state, and share assessments of catastrophic risks under the state\u2019s oversight.<\/p>\n

Calvin alleges that OpenAI sought to weaken those requirements. In a letter to Governor Newsom\u2019s<\/a> office while the bill was still under negotiation, which was shared on X<\/a> in early September by a former AI policy researcher, the company urged California to treat companies as compliant with the state\u2019s rules if they had already signed a safety agreement with a U.S. federal agency or joined international frameworks such as the EU\u2019s AI Code of Practice. Calvin argues that such a provision could have significantly narrowed the law\u2019s reach\u2014potentially exempting OpenAI and other major AI developers from key safety and transparency requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to go into a ton of detail about it while SB 53 negotiations were still ongoing and we were trying to get it through,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want it to become a story about Encode and OpenAI fighting, rather than about the merits of the bill, which I think are really important. So I wanted to wait until the bill was signed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that another reason he decided to speak out now was a recent LinkedIn<\/a> post from Chris Lehane, OpenAI\u2019s head of global affairs, describing the company as having \u201cworked to improve\u201d SB 53\u2014a characterization Calvin said felt deeply at odds with his experience over the past few months.<\/p>\n

Encode was founded by Sneha Revanur, who launched the organization in 2020 when she was 15 years old. \u201cShe is not a full-time employee yet because she\u2019s still in college,\u201d said Sunny Gandhi, Encode\u2019s vice president of political affairs. \u201cIt\u2019s terrifying to have a half a trillion dollar company come after you,\u201d Gandhi said.<\/p>\n

Encode formally responded to OpenAI\u2019s subpoena, Calvin said, stating that it would not be turning over any documents because the organization is not funded by Elon Musk. \u201cThey have not said anything since,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Writing on X, OpenAI\u2019s Achiam publicly urged his company<\/a> to engage more constructively with its critics. \u201cElon is certainly out to get us, and the man has got an extensive reach,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut there is so much that is public that we can fight him on. And for something like SB 53, there are so many ways to engage productively.\u201d He added, \u201cWe can\u2019t be doing things that make us into a frightening power instead of a virtuous one. We have a duty and a mission to all of humanity, and the bar to pursue that duty is remarkably high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calvin described the episode as the \u201cmost stressful period of my professional life.\u201d He added that he uses and gets value from OpenAI products and that the company conducts and publishes AI safety research that is \u201cworthy of genuine praise.\u201d Many OpenAI employees, he said, care a lot about OpenAI being a force for good in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see that side of OAI, but instead I see them trying to intimidate critics into silence,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDoes anyone believe these actions are consistent with OpenAI\u2019s nonprofit mission to ensure that AGI benefits humanity?\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Calvin, the 29-year-old general counsel of Encode\u2014a small AI policy nonprofit with just three full-time employees\u2014published a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,11,124017,124018,123172,1283,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-220088","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-elon-musk","12":"tag-intimidation-tactics","13":"tag-midas-project","14":"tag-nathan-calvin","15":"tag-openai","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}