OpenAI’s president pulls back from a second $25 million donation to the AI super PAC

OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman has decided not to send the second $25 million donation promised to the “Leading the Future” super PAC, which backs candidates for the U.S. Congress who favour pro-artificial-intelligence policies, as The Wall Street Journal reports today.

Brockman and his wife Anna donated $25 million to the super PAC last September and had promised another $25 million for 2026. However, in an internal Slack message to OpenAI employees in June 2026, Brockman wrote that the couple would not fulfil the second part of the pledge, according to The New York Times’ reporting on Wednesday, 30 September.

“I am very sorry that LTF continues to reflect on the company and has become such a big distraction for people here. We have donated $25 million so far and have no plans to donate more at this moment,” Brockman wrote in the internal message to staff.

The initial donation sparked criticism inside OpenAI, where some employees saw it as an attempt by the leadership to block reasonable regulation of artificial intelligence. In June, the company published an unusual blog post in which it publicly distanced itself from the super PAC.

“Leading the Future” is also backed by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and SV Angel founder Ron Conway. Artificial intelligence policy is expected to be one of the main issues in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections.