Leaked Slack messages show OpenAI staff pushback before Brockman dropped a $25M super PAC donation

OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna have abandoned the second $25 million of a $50 million pledge to Leading the Future, a super PAC defending AI from regulation. Internal Slack messages shared with Semafor show the staff pushback behind the decision.

Inside the Slack thread

The dispute surfaced on June 1, when OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon previewed a blog post for employees denying any company tie to the PAC. Brockman's support "has been in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the company," Kwon wrote. More than 80 employees reacted approvingly, but the mood turned: staff questioned the group's independence and worried about OpenAI's brand and keeping senior researchers. One employee warned the activity could drive researchers to Anthropic and hamper the race to self-improving AI; it drew 24 "agree" reactions and one eyes emoji.

A day later, Kwon gave ground to another critic, saying the company was "taking reputational hits" and that he wished it had drawn its public lines sooner.

The June 11 reversal

The dispute flared up again on June 11, ten days after Kwon's post. A worker posted a Transformer article: the director of Build American AI, a sister group of the PAC, told journalist Veronica Irwin that "OpenAI is just one of them" among the project's funders; OpenAI says it did not fund the groups. An hour later Brockman weighed in: he denied the claim, assured staff he had given it nothing and dropped the additional $25 million. "I feel terrible about the fact that LTF keeps reflecting on the company," he wrote. First reported by The New York Times, the post drew 40 hearts, five checkmarks and three thank-you emojis. The thread lived on: one employee flagged money going to an X account described as an "LTF sockpuppet," drawing 22 "WTF" replies; on September 14 another revived it with a journalist's line that nobody in American politics believes OpenAI is not backing the PAC.

Why it matters

Leading the Future launched in August 2025 with more than $100 million in commitments, $50 million from the Brockmans; OpenAI global affairs chief Chris Lehane helped set it up. The company says "no outside political group speaks for OpenAI," but staff were skeptical as early as February and confronted Lehane at a May meeting. A person familiar with the situation said employee pushback was definitely part of Brockman's decision, though he also had qualms: the PAC targeted New York Assemblymember Alex Bores, an AI safety advocate, while he expected it to support allied candidates. The PAC has since donated mainly to front-runners, and candidates it backed have come out for a bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar to pause frontier AI development. The New York Times saw it less as an employee victory than a sign of the company's sensitivity to AI backlash. OpenAI declined to comment.