Politico reported OpenAI's silence on new chip restriction legislation; congressional aides described the company's position as "fuzzy".
Following·Day 3·5 sources
OpenAI Drops Support for China Chip Export Controls Amid Nvidia Ties
The gist
Congressional China hawks were counting on OpenAI's backing to push new chip restrictions during the lame-duck session following midterm elections, and its silence removes a significant industry voice from that effort. Critics argue the reversal effectively does Nvidia's lobbying work and is harmful to both US AI competitiveness and national security.
The full picture
OpenAI has gone quiet on US chip export controls targeting China, reversing a position it held as recently as March 2025, when it lobbied the White House to maintain strict limits and expand the list of restricted chips. Congressional aides say the company's stance has become "fuzzy" and it has stopped pressing for new restrictions. Anthropic took the opposite path, publicly backing several chip restriction bills and leaving a major tech trade association in September 2025 over that association's efforts to reshape the bills. Nvidia, which lobbies against chip restrictions, is simultaneously OpenAI's chip supplier, a $30 billion equity investor, and the guarantor of up to $105 billion for the first phase of an Ohio data center OpenAI will lease. No quid pro quo between the policy shift and the Nvidia deals has been reported.
How it developed
Sources
Miles Brundage Twitter
Rohan Paul Twitter
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