On June 1, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon gave employees a preview of a blog post denying the company had any connection to Leading the Future, a super PAC established to defend AI from regulation.
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company → give → regulation
OpenAI president Greg Brockman’s support for the super PAC “has been in a personal capacity, not on behalf of the company,” Kwon wrote in an internal Slack message.
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Kwon → write → message
Not everyone on his staff bought it.
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everyone → buy → it
One OpenAI employee took to Slack to warn of a dangerous trade-off: The company’s aggressive political activity threatened to drive researchers to Anthropic, and hamstring OpenAI in the all-out race to recursively self-improving AI.
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activity → take → race
The post earned 24 “agree” reactions and a solitary eyes emoji.
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post → earn → reactions
The next day, Kwon gave ground to a different internal critic: The company, he said on Slack, was “taking reputational hits.”
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he → give → hits
They had drawn “some clear public lines,” but “I wish we’d done it even sooner.”
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we → draw → it
Ten days after Kwon’s post, Brockman backed out of the second half of his public $50 million commitment, saying he felt “terrible about the fact that LTF keeps reflecting on the company” in a post first reported by The New York Times.
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LTF → back → Times
Brockman’s message received 40 hearts, five checkmarks, and three thank-you emojis.
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message → receive → hearts
The episode, part of a set of Slack messages shared with Semafor, offers a window into the complex internal politics of the handful of companies shaping the global future of artificial intelligence.
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episode → share → intelligence
Outsiders observing the tribal world of San Francisco frontier labs often see OpenAI as the “accelerationist” cousin to the safety-oriented Anthropic.
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Outsiders → observe → Anthropic
The rare glimpse inside the company’s Slack illustrates a more complex reality: Many of OpenAI’s developers, engineers, and researchers — whom the company is fighting to keep in intense talent wars whose bidders also include Meta, Google, and an array of startups — aren’t sanguine about unregulated AI.
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bidders → illustrate → AI
And they dislike being associated with the political group’s aggressive tactics.
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they → dislike → tactics
A spokeswoman for OpenAI declined to comment.
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spokeswoman → decline → OpenAI
One employee initially placated by Kwon’s post followed up two days later flagging that Brockman’s money would be used to fund an X account the employee described as “an LTF sockpuppet (confirmed here) that posts stuff like “[sam altman is] a caterpillar that murders insects and stitches their dismembered body parts onto its back as armor.”
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that → placate → armor
(Twenty-two other employees responded, “WTF.“)
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employees → respond → WTF
A source familiar with the situation told Semafor that employee pushback was definitely part of Brockman’s decision, but that he had his own qualms that began with LTF targeting New York Assemblymember Alex Bores, an AI safety advocate running for Congress in New York.
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LTF → tell → York
The person said that Brockman had expected the PAC to focus more on supporting allied candidates.
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PAC → say → candidates
The people running LTF appeared not to understand the complex internal dynamics of frontier safety policy — and how the whole industry would react to attacking someone running on that platform.
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industry → run → platform
At different points, the person added, Brockman gave pointed feedback to LTF; the source noted they hadn’t heard of the PAC attacking candidates since Bores.
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PAC → add → Bores
Since then, the PAC has overwhelmingly donated to front-runners in congressional races.
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PAC → donate → races
And candidates LTF has endorsed or implicitly supported
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LTF → endorse → candidates
have come out in favor of a bill from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar that would pause frontier AI development and criminalize attempting to build superintelligence, OpenAI’s stated goal.
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that → come → superintelligence
Leading the Future
LTF launched in August 2025, well before AI became a major public issue.
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AI → lead → August
The group boasted more than $100 million in commitments, with $50 million to come from Brockman and his wife Anna.
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group → boast → Brockman
OpenAI’s global affairs chief Chris Lehane had helped set up the PAC, which followed a model he pioneered for the crypto industry.
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he → set → industry
OpenAI sought to characterize the PAC as a totally independent entity, but employees — encouraged by critics on X — were skeptical.
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employees → seek → X
Staff were complaining about the connection in February, Wired reported, and Transformer reported that employees confronted Lehane in a meeting in May, pushing the company to explain its relationship with LTF.
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employees → complain → LTF
Kwon’s June 1 Slack message sought to defuse the controversy.
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message → seek → controversy
“Many have posted questions,” he wrote, about the nature of the relationship between OpenAI and LTF.
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he → post → OpenAI
At the end of the multi-paragraph message, he concluded, “Thank you to everyone who has given feedback on this topic and pushed for a stronger company statement, in particular” before tagging three employees.
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who → conclude → employees
It worked — for about an hour.
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It → work → hour
More than 80 employees reacted with approving emojis, and the first reply was excited and appreciative.
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reply → react → emojis
But then others questioned the group’s independence, highlighted LTF’s controversial and backfiring track record, and worried about the super PAC’s toxic effect on OpenAI’s brand and retention of senior researchers.
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others → question → researchers
The messages were shared with Semafor on the condition that they not be quoted directly out of concern that employees would feel uncomfortable seeing their messages reproduced verbatim, potentially chilling future Slacktivism.
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messages → share → Slacktivism
The dispute flared up again on June 11.
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dispute → flare → June
One worker posted a Transformer article in which the director of LTF’s sister lobbying group, Build American AI (BAAI), which does not disclose its donors, texted journalist Veronica Irwin, “For this project I’m funded by four separate entities … OpenAI is just one of them” (OpenAI told Irwin and other journalists that the company had not provided funding to the groups).
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company → post → groups
Just over an hour later, Brockman weighed in for the first time, denying the story’s claim that OpenAI backed BAAI and assuring staff that he’d given nothing to the organization (though as employees noted later in the thread, LTF gives money to BAAI).
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LTF → weigh → BAAI
He then apologized for how LTF reflected on the company and abandoned his additional $25 million donation.
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LTF → apologize → donation
Initially, responses in the thread under Kwon’s post ping-ponged between appreciation and recrimination, with approving Slack reactions hovering in the 20s and 30s for each variety.
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reactions → pe → variety
…and 32 more, not listed.
The Aporia
