OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pushed back on Senate Democrats questioning his motivations over donating a million dollars to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund.
Altman was sent a letter accusing him and other Big Tech CEOs of an apparent “effort to
influence and sway the actions and policies of the incoming administration” from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO). The letter included a list of questions, accusing his company of being involved in his decision to donate to the inaugural fund.
The OpenAI CEO responded by joking that he never got the same kind of scrutiny when donating to Democrats and said it was a personal donation, not associated with his company.
it was a personal contribution as you state; i am confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision.
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 17, 2025
“funny, they never sent me one of these for contributing to democrats…” Altman said on a post on X.
“it was a personal contribution as you state; i am confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision,” he said in a subsequent post.
Altman was one of several tech CEOs, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who donated to the inaugural fund. All received a letter from Warren and Bennet.
Some of the CEOs of those companies are planning to attend Monday’s inauguration, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.
As part of President Joe Biden’s farewell address earlier this week, he warned of a “dangerous” oligarchy forming leading into Trump’s second administration, as Musk has developed into a close ally of the president-elect.
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“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,” Biden said in his Wednesday speech.
Republicans have taken concern with this narrative, citing how Big Tech donated millions of dollars to Democrats in previous election cycles. In 2020, Google’s parent owner, Alphabet, donated $12 million to Biden’s campaign and Amazon donated almost $10 million.