How Dustin Moskovitz's Open Philanthropy is pushing policymakers to focus on AI's long-term risks by funding salaries of staff in Congress and federal agencies
How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington - POLITICO … Kim Perales / @KimPerales@toad.social : Corrupt, self-serving, & dangerous #AI tech titans are influencing MOC. Horizon is part of AI influence that Open Philanthropy has built *closely aligned with effective altruism (SBF)... Read: — https://www.politico.com/... X: Brendan Bordelon / @brendanbordelon : NEW: Tech billionaires with ties to top AI firms are funding the salaries of AI staffers in the key congressional offices working to regulate AI. The program is part of a broader network that's pushing Washington to focus on AI's apocalyptic potential. https://www.politico.com/... Tonya Riley / @tonyajoriley : Absolute 🔥investigation by @BrendanBordelon on how a billionaire backed nonprofit with AI connections is funding AI staffers on the Hill and around DC https://www.politico.com/... Émile P. Torres, PhD / @xriskology : A fanastic and very, very important article on the rapidly growing influence of the TESCREAL bundle in Washington DC. Stellar reporting, @BrendanBordelon. Highly recommended reading: https://www.politico.com/... Dr. Angela Rasmussen / @angie_rasmussen : Sounds familiar: ✔️fixation on unlikely speculative existential risks ✔️failing to address actual, much greater risks ✔️wrapped in a cloak of EA longtermist bullshit Open Philanthropy is using the same playbook to influence biosecurity policy. https://www.politico.com/... [image] @basedbeffjezos : The same mafia behind EAs and SBF are behind AI Safetyist/Doomer fear-mongering regulatory push. It's all the same latent variables vying for control and power under the guise of virtue. https://www.politico.com/... Tim Wu / @superwuster : This article fortifies my sense that the DC AI conversation is entirely focused on the wrong things - abstract harms, as opposed to the obvious and real harms we already see, particularly human impersonation. https://www.politico.com/... Karthik Ramakrishnan / @_kramki : Further to the @Jason @sundeep @bgurley episode earlier this week, this article is 🤯🤯A deeply concerning and well researched piece about the rise of effective altruism and x risk in Washington DC by @politicos @BrendanBordelon - A sprawling network spread across Congress,... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Deeply reported on how AI influence overtook DC. As walls were closing in on big tech with antitrust bills, they came to town pushing crypto but failed to distract long term. Same thing happened with metaverse, quickly forgotten. But AI has now stuck. https://www.politico.com/... LinkedIn: Stephan A. Schwartz : The tech billionaires who understand AI far better than Congress members or their staffs are, as this article describes, moving to take control of a technology and shape how it develops. … Dr. Rumman Chowdhury : A deeply concerning and well researched piece about the rise of effective altruism and x risk in Washington DC by POLITICO s Brendan Bordelon … Ana Brandusescu : “The network's fixation on speculative harms is “almost like a caricature of the reality that we're experiencing,” said Deborah Raji … Forums: r/singularity : How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington r/neoliberal : How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington
Context & Ripple Effects
Open Philanthropy had already backed university work aimed at rogue-AI risks through its investment in AI-risk scholarships and research. This report moves that same agenda closer to the institutions writing and implementing policy.
The funding sits within a wider Washington debate over long-term AI harms: related coverage later described effective-altruism-linked influence across the White House, Congress, and think tanks. That makes staff capacity—not just public advocacy—a consequential channel for shaping which risks receive official attention.
First-order effects
- Congressional offices and federal agencies gain AI-focused staff capacity financed through Open Philanthropy’s network, giving long-term-risk analysis a more direct place in policy development.
- Open Philanthropy and aligned advisers gain sustained access to policymaking workflows, while lawmakers and agencies become more reliant on externally funded technical expertise.
Second-order effects
- Other AI-policy constituencies—including developers, civil-society groups, and specialists focused on nearer-term harms—face stronger incentives to fund or place their own expertise so the agenda is not set by one donor-backed network.
- Policy proposals may place greater weight on frontier-model safeguards and long-horizon risk questions, alongside the contemporaneous debate over possible controls on general-purpose AI programs.
Third-order effects
- If external funding becomes a durable way to build government AI capacity, AI governance could be shaped increasingly by which private networks can finance expert pipelines, raising questions about independence and representation.
- The episode points to a state-mediated AI regime in which technical capacity, philanthropy, and national-policy priorities become more intertwined; whether that improves policymaking depends on transparency and a broader range of expertise.
The trend: AI governance is becoming a contest not only over rules, but over who supplies the expertise that lets governments define AI risk in the first place.