Sam Altman's OpenAI backing initiative headed by several anti-Trump staff pushing liberal causes

OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, is backing an initiative known as AI 2030, which is aimed at shaping "public dialogue about U.S. competition against China on AI," Politico reported in October.

The initiative is led by the "non-partisan" think tank American Security Project (ASP), where Kerry was a founding member and served two stints on the board of directors. 

In 2014, Altman co-hosted a fundraiser for the DNC at Y Combinator's offices in Mountain View, California, which was headlined by then-President Obama.

"It is critically important that the US maintains its lead in developing AI with democratic values," he added. 

During Altman's tenure from 2014 to 2019 as the CEO of Y Combinator, an incubator startup that launched Airbnb, DoorDash and DropBox, he talked about China in multiple blog posts and interviews. In 2017, Altman said that he "felt more comfortable discussing controversial ideas in Beijing than in San Francisco" and that he felt like an expansion into China was "important" because "some of the most talented entrepreneurs" that he has met have been operating there. 

Altman's résumé and AI efforts have drawn the ire of Trump ally Elon Musk in recent years. Musk said last year, "I don't trust OpenAI. I don't trust Sam Altman. And I don't think we ought to have the most powerful AI in the world controlled by someone who is not trustworthy."

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot whose core function is to mimic a human in conversation. Users across the world have used ChatGPT to write emails, debug computer programs, answer homework questions, play games, write stories and song lyrics, and much more. 

"It is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs, that's true. We can make much better ones. The reason to develop AI at all, in terms of impact on our lives and improving our lives and upside, this will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed," Altman said in a 2023 interview with ABC News. "The promise of this technology, one of the ones that I'm most excited about, is the ability to provide individual learning - great individual learning for each student."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for OpenAI said, "America has to win the AI race, and that is why Americans from both sides of the aisle are united in supporting policies that help the US maintain its competitive edge against China." 

"ASP is a nearly twenty-year-old bipartisan organization that works with legislators, retired flag officers, subject matter experts, and groups from across the political spectrum to produce high quality research and forge bipartisan consensus on emerging threats to our national security," an ASP spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

"While OpenAI is one of many donors for AI Imperative 2030, we ensure an equal balance of opinions informed by independent experts and Consensus for American Security members, including Julia Nesheiwat, Ph.D., former Trump Homeland Security Advisor, and Neil Chatterjee, former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under Trump. We also recently hosted a roundtable featuring Nazak Nikakhtar, another former Trump official."

The statement continued, "The primary objective of AI Imperative 2030 is to ensure that the U.S., not China, wins the race for AI supremacy. China aims to surpass the U.S. and lead the world in AI by 2030. We can't let that happen. President Trump has been a leader in creating bipartisan consensus that the U.S. needs to compete more vigorously with China, and we look forward to working with his administration and the Republican Congress to design effective and cost-efficient policies towards this goal."

Fox News Digital's Nikolas Lanum, Cameron Cawthorne and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.