OpenAI’s president and cofounder Greg Brockman doesn’t consider himself political, which is surprising, because he was one of President Trump’s biggest individual donors of 2025.

Greg and his wife, Anna Brockman, gave $25 million to MAGA Inc—a super PAC that supports President Trump—in September of last year. The pair also gave $25 million to a bipartisan AI super PAC, Leading the Future, which says it plans to oppose politicians that jeopardize Americans’ “ability to benefit from AI.” The Brockmans have pledged to give an additional $25 million to Leading the Future in 2026, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

According to Brockman, these political donations are in service of OpenAI’s founding mission: to develop highly capable AI systems and distribute the benefits to all of humanity.

“This mission, in my mind, is bigger than companies, bigger than corporate structures,” he says in an interview with WIRED. “We are embarking on a journey to develop this technology that’s going to be the most impactful thing humanity has ever created. Getting that right and making that benefit everyone, that’s the most important thing.”

Brockman’s emergence as a major political donor marks a sharp departure for a tech leader who, until recently, had no significant history of political spending. The largest donation Brockman gave previously was a $5,400 gift to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Brockman says he’s ramping up his political spending in part because public opinion has turned against AI. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center suggests Americans are “more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life.” To Brockman, this has made supporting pro-AI politicians increasingly critical.

“There’s a small number of politicians who I think—despite realizing it’s not the most popular thing—are really putting themselves out there to say, actually, we think [AI] is important for the country,” he says. “I think supporting them is really important. I believe that this technology is something that’s important for global communities. I think it’s important for America. I think it’s important for the world. And anything I can do to support this technology benefiting everyone is a thing that I will do. In this sense, maybe supporting the team is bigger than the people that I happen to be employed with. It’s really team humanity.”

Despite his stated goal, Brockman’s donations could be contributing to the negative sentiment some people have toward AI. QuitGPT, a movement calling on people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions over Brockman’s donation to Trump, is gaining traction, with more than 700,000 people sharing the petition online or signing its pledge. On Sunday, actor Mark Ruffalo announced on Instagram he was joining the movement.

His donations have also caused some consternation inside OpenAI. While many employees understand that the company needs to work with government officials to develop cutting-edge technology, there’s a feeling that Brockman is doing more than is strictly necessary to advance OpenAI’s business. “I personally think Greg’s political donations probably go beyond that,” says one OpenAI researcher who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“I think there’s no decision ever that everyone at OpenAI agrees with,” Brockman says when I ask what his team thinks about the donations. “Even when we were 10 people. We’ve always been a truth-seeking culture. We have this scientific mission of discovery, and reality kind of doesn’t care for your own opinion. It cares about what’s true.”

OpenAI maintains that the Brockmans’ donations are strictly personal, and not a reflection of the company’s politics. “The Brockmans’ donation reflects their focus on AI as a defining issue for the country and the world during this presidency,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “They bring a unique perspective on the technology and are engaged specifically on this issue.”

Many AI leaders have celebrated President Trump in his second term for championing AI development and clearing roadblocks for companies. Last year, Trump said in his AI Action Plan he would streamline permitting for data centers. He also signed an executive order threatening to challenge state-level AI laws that could create a “patchwork” of regulations for companies to navigate.

In recent weeks, however, Silicon Valley’s relationship with Trump has been tested by the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti by Department of Homeland Security agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees in a Slack memo that “what’s happening with ICE is going too far,” while acknowledging he was encouraged by Trump’s response. Other tech leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind’s Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, have spoken out publicly against the ICE incidents.

“I hope a day like today makes Greg reconsider his politics,” said Aidan Clark, OpenAI’s VP of research (training), in a post on X the day that Pretti died. “I don’t agree with (some) of his politics, but I also don’t believe by helping make OpenAI succeed I am helping make Trump succeed (in fact often the opposite!).”

After our interview, Brockman declined WIRED’s request for comment on the ICE shootings, offering a more general statement instead. “AI is a uniting technology, and can be so much bigger than what divides us today,” he said.

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