OpenAI and Anthropic have each hired several senior officials who served under former President Donald Trump. Anthropic added a former White House senior policy advisor to its board in February and hired a former OSTP AI adviser as head of frontier compute strategy in September. OpenAI brought in three Trump-era staffers for strategy, cyber risk and strategic futures roles between March and July. The moves come as frontier AI companies try to build ties with Washington amid calls for regulation and security concerns.
Why it matters
Hiring former Trump officials gives the labs direct insight into U.S. policy levers that could affect AI regulation and federal contracts.
