$215,000 from OpenAI staff backs anti-AI PAC

How much money are OpenAI employees putting into Guardrails Alliance?

OpenAI staff have given more than $215,000 to a super PAC opposing pro-industry AI spending.

What changed

Seven current OpenAI employees and one former employee have donated to Guardrails Alliance, a new super PAC pushing for stricter rules on frontier AI labs. WIRED says the donations total more than $215,000, with the group sharing some donor names before its first Federal Election Commission filing.

The PAC launched last month with $5 million in starting money and wants to raise $15 million this election cycle. It is trying to counter Leading the Future, a pro-industry PAC backed by more than $100 million, including $50 million from OpenAI president and cofounder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna.

• Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, an OpenAI research engineer, gave $200,000.
• Gabriel Wu, an OpenAI safety researcher, gave $5,000.
• Julie Steele and Jason Wolfe, both OpenAI alignment researchers, each gave $5,000.
• David Farhi, a former OpenAI research manager, gave $3,000.

Guardrails Alliance says more OpenAI donors will show up in later FEC filings, including two current employees in the first public report and five more later on. The group also expects former Andreessen Horowitz partner John O’Farrell to appear in its next filing.

Why it matters

The donations show a public split inside OpenAI over how aggressively to shape AI policy. Some workers are now spending their own money to oppose a PAC tied to their company’s president, after staff raised concerns about OpenAI’s links to Leading the Future.

For developers and AI companies, the fight is about whether frontier model policy gets written by industry money or by groups pressing for guardrails, disclosure, and state-level oversight. Guardrails Alliance says it can compete without matching dollar for dollar by making AI PAC spending more visible to voters.

Leading the Future denies it is trying to silence debate, saying it supports a “clear, positive, and proactive agenda” and has backed candidates across the country. OpenAI says Brockman’s giving is personal and that employees may take part in politics in their own capacity.

The immediate question is not which PAC has more cash, but whether OpenAI’s internal split becomes a template for how AI workers push back on the political power of their own executives.