Nathan Calvin, general counsel of AI safety nonprofit Encode, says OpenAI used intimidation tactics to undermine California's SB 53 while it was being debated
one which buried that the recipient, the GC of a company who Amicus-ed us, received a broad subpoena with advance notice— was not the way. @lessig : This is awful. Aggressive lawyering is always a bad sign. Brad Carson / @bradrcarson : One of the more interesting results from The Curve was talking to OAI engineers. Not a one knew anything about the company's political activities, including the hiring of Chris Lehane or the lawfare that @_NathanCalvin and others endured. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : @jasonkwon @_NathanCalvin OpenAI is built on a lie And you know it Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : @_NathanCalvin This is disgusting. Shame on OpenAI. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : They stole a charity and used it for their own financial gain Timothy B. Lee / @binarybits : Folks is it “a routine step” for a party to respond to a non-profit filing an amicus brief by subpoenaing the non-profit with a bunch of questions about its funding and barely related lobbying activities? That is not my impression. Cody Fenwick / @codytfenwick : This is not acceptable. Remember that OpenAI is still legally a nonprofit with a mission of benefiting all of humanity. It should not be using the law to bully advocates for safely regulating AI. Elon Musk / @elonmusk : OpenAI is built on a lie Nathan Calvin / @_nathancalvin : A magistrate judge even chastised OpenAI more broadly for their behavior in the discovery process in their case against Musk. 9/15 [image] Nathan Calvin / @_nathancalvin : Why did OpenAI subpoena me? Encode has criticized OpenAI's restructuring and worked on AI regulations, including SB 53. I believe OpenAI used the pretext of their lawsuit against Elon Musk to intimidate their critics and imply that Elon is behind all of them. 3/15 Nathan Calvin / @_nathancalvin : Does anyone believe these actions are consistent with OpenAI's nonprofit mission to ensure that AGI benefits humanity? OpenAI still has time to do better. I hope they do. 15/15 Nathan Calvin / @_nathancalvin : There's a big problem with that idea: Elon isn't involved with Encode. Elon wasn't behind SB 53. He doesn't fund us, and we've never spoken to him. 4/15 Sunny Gandhi / @sgandhi0 : Good thread from Nathan. I want to highlight again the utter insanity that @OpenAI — an org that would be regulated by SB 53 — attempted to interfere in the leg process not by engaging, but by subpoenaing an advocacy org for their private communications with legislators. @s_oheigeartaigh : These behaviours should be known about. As someone who has been involved with small research centres and nonprofits, I would find it very intimidating to be targeted this way by a $300 billion company. Like Nathan, I like many people at OpenAI, and admire their safety research. Neel Nanda / @neelnanda5 : Extremely slimy behaviour from OpenAI. If I worked for OpenAI I'd be pretty embarrassed about my employer right now If you want the world to trust you to make super intelligence, you need to hold yourself to *far* higher standards Gary Marcus / @garymarcus : Dear @OpenAI, not everybody who criticizes your decade-long history of shady practices has anything to do with @elonmusk. A lot of us just don't like how you roll. Serving subpoenas on your critics is not cool. Jason Kwon / @jasonkwon : There's quite a lot more to the story than this. As everyone knows, we are actively defending against Elon in a lawsuit where he is trying to damage OpenAI for his own financial benefit. Encode, the organization for which @_NathanCalvin serves as the General Counsel, was one of the first third parties - whose funding has not been fully disclosed - that quickly filed in support of Musk. For a safety policy organization to side with Elon (?), that raises legitimate questions about what is going on. We wanted to know, and still are curious to know, whether Encode is working in collaboration with third parties who have a commercial competitive interest adverse to OpenAI. The stated narrative makes this sound like something it wasn't... Tyler Johnston / @tylerjnstn : @jasonkwon @_NathanCalvin Even granting your dubious excuses, what about my case? Neither myself nor my organization were involved in your case with Musk. But OpenAI still demanded every document, email, and text message I have about your restructuring... https://x.com/... Nathan Calvin / @_nathancalvin : This is not normal. OpenAI used an unrelated lawsuit to intimidate advocates of a bill trying to regulate them. While the bill was still being debated. 7/15 Helen Toner / @hlntnr : Every so often, OpenAI employees ask me how I see the co now. It's always tough to give a simple answer. Some things they're doing, eg on CoT monitoring or building out system cards, are great. But the dishonesty & intimidation tactics in their policy work are really not. E.g: Forums: r/OpenAI : A 3-person policy non-profit that worked on California's AI safety law is publicly accusing OpenAI of intimidation tactics | Fortune Beehaw : OpenAI allegedly sent police to an AI regulation advocate's door
Context & Ripple Effects
The allegation sits at the intersection of OpenAI's dispute with Elon Musk and a wider fight over its governance and public-interest commitments. That conflict already drew support from former employees through a former-employee amicus filing and followed Musk's lawsuit challenging OpenAI's shift toward profit.
Encode's role in California AI policy and its criticism of OpenAI's restructuring make the claimed use of litigation tools consequential beyond the immediate dispute: it concerns how a leading AI developer engages with organized regulatory critics.
First-order effects
- OpenAI faces renewed scrutiny over its litigation and policy-engagement practices, while Encode and other advocates may treat participation in AI-rulemaking debates as carrying greater legal and personal risk.
- The allegations tie a subpoena reportedly issued in the Musk litigation to a state-policy fight, potentially widening the factual and reputational stakes of that case for OpenAI.
Second-order effects
- California policymakers and advocacy groups may demand clearer separation between litigation discovery and lobbying or regulatory engagement, especially when regulated firms seek information from policy opponents.
- Rival AI labs can differentiate their regulatory posture by emphasizing cooperative engagement with state officials and civil-society groups; OpenAI's response will shape whether that contrast is credible.
Third-order effects
- If legal discovery is increasingly perceived as a tool for contesting AI regulation, trust between frontier labs, watchdogs, and state policymakers could erode, strengthening calls for more formalized and transparent consultation processes.
- The episode reinforces that AI labs' political conduct can become part of their operating legitimacy, alongside product safety and corporate-governance questions.
The trend: Frontier AI competition is expanding into a legitimacy contest in which companies' litigation, governance, and state-policy behavior increasingly affect their ability to shape regulation.