EXCLUSIVE — One of former President Joe Biden’s top tech advisors used a little-known law to hire staff that ultimately pushed for policies supported by Anthropic, a major artificial intelligence firm. Both that advisor and the staff they brought on had ties to a nonprofit organization funded by a major investor in Anthropic, an arrangement some have characterized as a conflict of interest.
Jason Matheny, the founding director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, served in several senior roles within the Biden White House between March 2021 and June 2022. During this period, documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show that Matheny hired Benjamin Buchanan, then a top staffer at CSET, using the Intergovernmental Personnel Act and tasked him with helping the administration craft its AI policies.
The Intergovernmental Personnel Act exists to help the federal government staff hard-to-fill positions requiring specialized skills or knowledge by recruiting directly from universities and think tanks. As part of such arrangements, the organizations that the government pulls from typically continue to pay the salaries and benefits of their recruited staffers.
In this case, Georgetown University, where Buchanan was serving as director of CSET’s CyberAI project, continued to pay his salary and benefits, which were reimbursed by the federal government at the end of each month, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.
CSET, at the time, was funded almost entirely by Open Philanthropy, receiving $97 million from the charitable foundation between 2019 and 2021. Open Philanthropy, in turn, is funded primarily by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna.
Moskovitz was a major investor in Anthropic’s initial $124 million fundraising round, which occurred in early 2021 — around the time Matheny and Buchanan entered the Biden administration.
One of Buchanan’s primary achievements during his stint in the White House was his role in restricting the export of top-end chips to China, a policy enacted to hamstring Beijing’s attempts to assert dominance in artificial intelligence research and development. Semafor identified Buchanan as “one of the key architects” of the Biden administration’s attempt to restrict chip exports.
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in 2025, Anthropic penned a letter to his administration urging it to keep the export controls in place, arguing that doing so was important for maintaining national security. The Trump administration ultimately rescinded the rule restricting chip exports.
This dynamic, wherein individuals with links to tech interests enter government and pursue policies desired by those tech interests, has faced some criticism.
In 2024, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote a series of letters to federal agencies arguing that the Biden administration’s use of the IPA for the purpose of recruiting staffers to formulate AI policy raises “reasonable concerns that these influential AI fellows are shaping federal policy to benefit their organizations’ funders and not the American people.”
“In effect, large AI technology companies are influencing the Biden administration’s AI policy from the inside and advancing their own anti-competitive agenda to shape the future of the AI industry,” the senator claimed. Cruz explicitly named Moskovitz in his letter.
Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Just because Buchanan and Matheny had ties to CSET while in government service does not mean that the think tank or its donors were dictating their opinions or objectives. Often, donors opt to support causes or individuals who already align with them. This does, according to some, give the preferences of wealthy donors increased presence in policy discussions.
“For my entire career, I have worked to ensure that the United States — not China — leads the world in AI and that the technology is safe, secure, and trustworthy,” Buchanan told the Washington Examiner. “It was an honor to take a leave from my professorship at Georgetown University to advance this mission in the White House. I scrupulously complied with all legal and ethics rules and answered only to President Biden and the senior White House staff. Congress passed the Intergovernmental Personnel Act to bring technical academics into government to work on pressing issues.”
“Both President Biden and President Trump have used this authority to hire AI experts, and I was proud to be one of them,” Buchanan pointed out.
TECH DONORS FUND MEDIA FELLOWSHIP SHAPING COVERAGE OF THEIR PET ISSUE
Open Philanthropy rebranded to Coefficient Giving in November 2025. That same year, Moskovitz transferred his stake in Anthropic, which had reportedly grown to roughly $500 million, to his charity to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interests
The Washington Examiner reached out to the RAND Corporation, where Matheny now serves as CEO, to request comment from him.