Look at OpenAI and Anthropic executives’ political donations

Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, and his wife Anna have given far more to political causes than the combined donations of other top executives of the research lab and its rival Anthropic.

The Brockmans gave a total of $25 million to the President Donald Trump-aligned political action committee Maga Inc. and became two of the group’s largest donors. The couple also gave a total of $25 million to the artificial intelligence advocacy group Leading the Future PAC, last year.

To see where AI companies are getting involved in politics, the Chronicle looked at donations from OpenAI and Anthropic and their high-level executives to federal, state and local races for the 2025-2026 election cycle.

In contrast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave just $31,100 across eight donations, according to a Chronicle analysis. The largest was $7,000 to Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia. Warner is the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a key figure calling for AI regulation. Altman’s total donations were split between the two major parties, with $17,100 going to Democrats and $14,000 going to Republicans.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei donated $1 million in May to Public First Action, a PAC focused on promoting AI safety regulations, consistent with his calls for slowing down development and more safeguards.

The AI growth frenzy has ushered in a new wave of San Francisco wealth and rising political influence, particularly amid uncertainty around the direction of federal AI regulations and fears of an AI doomsday scenario. The industry has also used tax breaks and needs government support as it spends tens of billions of dollars building out data centers across the nation. Though the tech industry’s giving has historically favored Democrats, more tech leaders like Brockman have supported Trump since he returned to office, though overall, more Bay Area tech workers still support Democrats.

Brockman had planned to give another $25 million to Leading the Future but cancelled the donation, the New York Times reported last week. Brockman said in a Slack message that he felt “terrible” about the “distraction” that last year’s donations caused, according to the Times.

OpenAI said in June that it hasn’t made any donations to PACs and hasn’t donated to political candidates or campaigns. Employees such as Brockman are “free to participate in the political process,” the company said, but added that “OpenAI does not direct the activities of LTF, or have visibility into their operations … . No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company’s views.”

Brockman posted on X at the end of 2025 that his political donations were “reflecting support for policies that advance American innovation and constructive dialogue between government and the technology sector. These views are grounded in a belief that the United States must work closely with builders, researchers, and entrepreneurs to ensure AI is developed responsibly at home and that we remain globally competitive.”

He testified in federal court in May that his stake in OpenAI was worth nearly $30 billion. That translates to owning over 3% of the company, which was valued at $852 billion in March and is now reportedly in talks for a fundraising round with a valuation around $1.4 trillion. Altman does not hold equity in the company but previously became wealthy through founding startup Loopt, which was sold for $43 million, and earlier tech investments including Airbnb and Uber.

On a state level, OpenAI funneled $10 million to the Parents & Kids Safe AI Coalition, a PAC aimed at the California Legislature to pass legislation for AI child-safety regulations. 

Anthropic has spent money on state level races too, donating $850,000 to the California Democratic Party and over $100,000 to other Democratic candidates running for state Senate and Assembly.

In San Francisco, OpenAI, Anthropic and other companies have each donated $500,000 to support a November ballot measure that would extend a San Francisco affordable housing funding program.

In 2023, Altman also gave $3,300 to the congressional campaign of state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.

Anthropic’s PAC gave $156,000 across 44 donations, with $98,000, or nearly two thirds of donations, going to Republicans and $58,000 going to Democrats.

Anthropic leader Amodei reportedly referenced Brockman’s donations to Maga Inc. in a company memo in March, when the company was clashing with the Pentagon around removing safety guardrails amid the Iran war, according to the Information.

“The real reasons DoW (Department of War) and the Trump admin do not like us is that we haven’t donated to Trump (while OpenAI/Greg have donated a lot), we haven’t given dictator-style praise to Trump (while Sam has), we have supported AI regulation which is against their agenda, we’ve told the truth about a number of AI policy issues (like job displacement), and we’ve actually held our red lines with integrity rather than colluding with them to produce ‘safety theater’ for the benefit of employees,” Amodei reportedly wrote.