OpenAI Employees Pool Rp 3.8 Billion to Challenge Their Boss
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia — A number of OpenAI employees have raised US$215,000 (Rp3.8 billion) and donated it to a political action committee (super PAC) called ‘Guardrails Alliance’ to push for stricter regulation of frontier AI laboratories.
This contrasts with OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to develop ever more advanced AI amid increasingly fierce competition. The AI giant has also long taken a defiant stance towards proposals for tight regulation.
Guardrails Alliance was launched last month with total initial funding of US$5 million (Rp90 billion). The alliance positions itself as a populist movement supported by technology sector workers, labour unions and various other groups, as reported by Wired on Thursday (16 July 2026).
The organisation aims to be a counterweight to ‘Leading the Future’, a pro-AI industry super PAC funded with more than US$100 million (Rp1.8 trillion) from technology moguls, including OpenAI’s president and co-founder, Greg Brockman.
According to information obtained by Wired, seven current OpenAI employees, along with one former employee, have made donations to Guardrails Alliance. The super PAC exclusively shared the names of some of its donors with Wired ahead of its first quarterly report to the Federal Election Commission, published on 15 July 2026.
Two OpenAI employees are expected to be listed in that report, whilst five others are scheduled to be named in future disclosures by Guardrails Alliance.
One of the largest donations from an OpenAI employee came from Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, who contributed US$200,000 (Rp3.6 billion) to the political fundraising group. Cerón Uribe, who has been a research engineer at OpenAI since 2022, told Wired he had spent the past four years working on the company’s strategy to mitigate the potential harmful effects of AI on society.
“During this time, I grew worried that all of that research would be in vain if it is not translated into oversight mechanisms (guardrails) that hold private companies accountable for responsible AI development,” Cerón Uribe said in a statement.
“Tech billionaires, like Greg Brockman, are funding a super PAC called Leading the Future so that AI remains unregulated. I was very pleased to learn that Guardrails Alliance is fighting back against LTF. My decision to donate to them was an easy one,” he explained.
The contributions from current and former OpenAI employees represent only a small fraction of Guardrails Alliance’s larger fundraising target of US$15 million (Rp270 billion) for this election cycle. The amount also pales in comparison to the US$50 million (Rp902 billion) committed by Brockman and his wife, Anna, to Leading the Future.
However, regardless of the sums involved, the donations from OpenAI employees underscore the mounting tensions within the company over its efforts to shape AI policy.
Brockman’s donation to Leading the Future has raised concerns among some OpenAI employees, who have urged executives to explain the company’s relationship with the super PAC. OpenAI’s leadership initially sought to distance itself from the group, but now a number of employees are using their own money to directly oppose Leading the Future.