One of the most powerful artificial intelligence platforms in the world is facing growing questions over whether its leadership, funding and product decisions reflect a quiet but deeply entrenched political bias.
A review of federal campaign finance records, executive statements, academic studies and internal communications paints a striking picture: the company’s upper ranks and workforce skew overwhelmingly Democratic, while its AI models have repeatedly been flagged by researchers for left-leaning outputs.
That political imbalance is not theoretical. It is documented in hard campaign finance data. Federal Election Commission data shows OpenAI personnel donated $429,000 to Democratic campaigns and committees during the 2024 cycle, compared to just $3,800 to Republicans.
Since 2008, CEO Sam Altman has contributed more than $1.7 million to Democratic candidates and organizations, while donating roughly $40,000 to Republicans.
Altman’s political views have not been subtle. In 2016, he described Donald Trump as an “unacceptable threat to America” and said Trump was “abusive, erratic… unfit to be President.” In a blog post that year, Altman wrote that Trump “is irresponsible in the way dictators are,” adding that to anyone familiar with 1930s Germany, “it’s chilling to watch Trump in action.”
1) I am voting against Trump because I believe the principles he stands for represent an unacceptable threat to America.
— Sam Altman (@sama) October 17, 2016
“To anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s, it’s chilling to watch Trump in action,” Altman wrote. “Though I know intellectually it’s easy in hard economic times to rile people up with a hatred of outsiders, it’s still surprising to watch this happen right in front of us.” He also compared what he called “Trump’s Big Lie” to the “Big Lie” associated with Adolf Hitler.
Following the 2020 election, Altman publicly thanked tech billionaire Reid Hoffman for efforts to defeat Trump. The ideological tilt is not limited to one executive. Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane previously worked in the Clinton White House and is credited with coining the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” to describe Republican opposition to the Clinton administration.
OpenAI’s CEO is Sam Altman. Co-founder of the company that conducts AI research and deployment. Altman has led OpenAI. New York City, 14 October 2025
Lehane has donated more than $185,000 to Democratic candidates and committees. Other senior leaders have also donated primarily to Democratic campaigns, including presidential candidates and party committees. While a handful of executives have contributed to Republican causes, the overall financial pattern is overwhelmingly one-sided.
Multiple academic studies have raised concerns about political bias in the platform’s outputs.
A Stanford School of Business study found the company’s models were perceived as the most left-leaning among major AI systems. A 2023 paper from researchers at the University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon and Xi’an Jiaotong University concluded that ChatGPT and GPT-4 were “the most left-wing libertarian of 14 AI models.”
Researchers from the University of East Anglia found “robust evidence” the chatbot demonstrated “a significant and systematic political bias toward the democrats in the U.S.”. Meanwhile, analysts at the Manhattan Institute reported the system tended to produce responses aligned with “left-of-center political viewpoints” when presented with politically charged prompts.
In January 2025, the company revised its “economic blueprint” for AI policy, removing language that previously stated AI models “should aim to be politically unbiased by default.” That change drew attention from policy observers who viewed neutrality as foundational to public trust.
There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets.
— James Dyett (@dyett) January 24, 2026
Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.
Internal communications have also added fuel to the debate. In January of this year, Altman criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a message to employees, writing in an internal slack conversation that “what’s happening with ICE is going too far” and that “it is the American duty to push back against overreach”
“I love the US and its values of democracy and freedom and will be supportive of the country however I can; OpenAI will too,” Atlman wrote. “But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach. What’s happening with ICE is going too far.”
The combination of lopsided political donations, pointed anti-Trump rhetoric from leadership and repeated academic findings of left-leaning output is raising more concerns at a moment when AI systems are increasingly embedded in everyday life.
Artificial intelligence is no longer a niche technology. It drafts emails, answers questions, shapes news consumption and assists in government workflows. As its influence expands, so too does the importance of who builds it and what assumptions are embedded beneath the surface.
