OpenAI and Anthropic hire former Trump officials to gain influence in Washington

According to CNBC (The Tech Download newsletter, October 9, 2026), OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring former Trump administration officials for senior roles. The goal is to strengthen their ties to Washington as frontier AI is increasingly seen as a national security issue.

According to the article, Anthropic has brought on at least two former Trump officials this year. Chris Liddell, who served as White House deputy chief of staff during Trump's first term, joined its board of directors in February. Sihao Huang joined in September as head of frontier compute strategy. He was previously a senior policy advisor on AI and emerging technologies at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Huang said on X that he will work on expanding Anthropic's infrastructure and on "planning for rapid AI progress." The piece adds that Anthropic is looking to close data center deals, and notes that CNBC reported in August on a cloud deal worth about $45 billion with Nscale.

OpenAI, for its part, has hired at least three people from the president's administrations. Dean Ball, a senior advisor at the OSTP in 2025 who helped draft the U.S. AI Action Plan, arrived in July as head of "strategic futures." Peter Bowman-Davis, formerly chief AI officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, joined in March to work on model training and hardware engineering, according to his LinkedIn. Thomas Lind, who led AI policy at the Office of the National Cyber Director, recently joined to lead cybersecurity and strategic risk on the national security policy team. That team is headed by Sasha Baker, a former deputy under secretary of defense in the Biden administration. Both companies also have several open policy relations positions.

Michelle Nie Duncan, a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security, explains the logic behind the moves. She says the companies know the administration has many levers over their business, such as federal procurement, supply chain designations and export controls, and that it is willing to use them. She adds that they have learned from the "Anthropic episode" that it pays to get along with the White House. She also notes that the upcoming IPOs, which she describes as among the largest in history, and compensation packages exceeding those in the public sector make these roles attractive. In her view, the labs are becoming highly influential institutions, and that is where much of the ability to shape AI governance lies today.

The article provides context on the relationship between Anthropic and the administration. This year has been particularly tense: in September a U.S. appeals court upheld the Pentagon's designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk, following a public clash earlier in the year. Dario Amodei has tried to smooth relations: he attended a lunch between Trump and AI executives and dined with the president in September. Trump has called AI safety concerns a "hoax" and advocates self-regulation, although he has also said the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies could "rein in" AI. CNBC notes that the companies are operating amid growing calls for regulation and after several cybersecurity incidents caused by rogue AI systems.

OpenAI referred CNBC to earlier statements about two of its hires; Anthropic and the White House did not respond. Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, said Ball will help stress-test its assumptions about frontier safety, the economic impact of increasingly capable systems, and the relationship between governments, companies and society.

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