Article
【OpenAI and Anthropic vie to recruit former Trump administration officials,AI accelerating the industry’s efforts to win Washington’s support】
OpenAI and Anthropic are recruiting former Trump administration officials for senior positions to strengthen their relationships with the U.S. government. As frontier AI technology is increasingly viewed as a national security issue, the two companies are expanding their political affairs operations to address the policy impacts of regulation, federal government procurement, supply chain risk designations, and export controls. Since the beginning of this year, Anthropic has hired at least two former Trump administration officials: former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell February joined its board, while Sihao Huang, formerly a senior policy adviser at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), joined the company to lead frontier compute strategy. OpenAI has also recently hired several former government officials, including Thomas Lind, who previously handled policy for the Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House,September Dean Ball, who participated in drafting the Trump administration’s “U.S.AI Action Plan,” and Peter Bowman-Davis, who previously served as Chief AI Official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Anthropic previously had a public dispute with the U.S. Department of Defense, and on AI the U.S. appeals court upheld its supply chain risk designation. Since then, Anthropic September CEO Dario Amodei has recently attempted to ease relations by meeting with Trump and other CEO corporate executives. Analysts say that as AI companies face increasingly complex regulatory and national security requirements, government relations are becoming an important component of competition in the industry. Both companies are currently hiring for multiple political affairs roles, seeking greater influence in the U.S.AI policymaking process.AI