AI CEOs' Policy Pitches May Go Nowhere in Washington
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- OpenAI published an industrial policy paper describing AI as Industrial Revolution-scale change, proposing aggressive measures including tax reform and a four-day workweek.
- Anthropic has focused its policy ideas on internal governance and transparency, including economic audits to measure AI's job impact, stricter export controls, and greater government evaluation of AI systems.
- OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane, a longtime political operative, told Axios the company is prioritizing state-level policy where success is more likely, especially in an election year when voters want to benefit from AI.
- Anthropic is expanding its D.C. presence under public policy head Sarah Heck, formerly of Stripe and the Obama White House National Security Council, and has backed state-level AI transparency bills while calling for a federal standard.
- Congress has a history of getting stuck in the policy weeds on privacy, social media, and now AI, while facing heavy lobbying and growing constituent demands on the future of the tech.
- The Trump administration has repeatedly failed in efforts to preempt state AI action, and its most recent AI framework proposal for Congress faces an uphill climb.
- Former CIA and Pentagon Joint AI Center CTO Nand Mulchandani told Axios at the HumanX conference that "Silicon Valley now has power rivaling the power of what a government has," calling the current clashes "the first large fight over who's driving the bus."
Why it matters: Even with allies in the White House, the AI industry is hitting the same wall in Washington that has stalled privacy and social media regulation for years. AI companies can float sweeping proposals unlikely to pass and still claim they warned policymakers, giving them a low-cost political shield while state-level fights become the real battleground.
