OpenAI and Anthropic hire Trump administration officials as AI firms court Washington

OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring former Trump administration officials for senior roles as AI companies work to strengthen ties with Washington.

Anthropic has appointed at least two former Trump officials, including Chris Liddell to its board and Sihao Huang as head of frontier compute strategy, while OpenAI has hired at least three, including Thomas Lind to lead cyber and strategic risk on its national security policy team.

The moves come as frontier AI is increasingly treated as a national security issue.