OpenAI is already trying to shape the 2028 elections

Chris Lehane, director of global affairs at OpenAI, believes the 2028 presidential election could be a defining moment for AI. And he wants politicians to start crafting policies that address Americans’ concerns about technology, rather than just paying lip service to anti-AI sentiment and backlash against data centers.

In a new essay, Lehane compares AI’s potential to reshape the economy to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the 1930s set of federal programs and reforms enacted after industrialization and the Great Depression shattered the old economic order. He observes that Americans today are just as anxious about losing control of their economic future and urges politicians to find a “compelling third way” that would allow people to share in the benefits of AI. It outlines five policy priorities, ranging from worker protection and education to AI security and data center development.

The essay follows a resounding Democratic victory in the midterm elections, in which Democrats flipped control of Congress amid widespread voter frustration with the cost of living. Kate Brennan, who directs AI and corporate power policy at the AI ​​Now Institute, told TechCrunch that Lehane’s rhetoric marks a notable shift from last year’s OpenAI policy agenda, which focused on accelerating AI development, reducing regulatory barriers and expanding infrastructure.

Unsurprisingly, many of Lehane’s proposals would encourage broader adoption of AI and support the expansion of infrastructure that companies like OpenAI need to grow. The original New Deal established protections for workers and placed constraints on corporate power. It’s less clear how Lehane’s vision would hold AI companies responsible for the economic disruption their technology could create.

“To invoke a New Deal metaphor is to invoke the ability of the state to actually benefit the public,” Brennan said. “This is written by a private company trying to push policies for its own benefit. It is ahistorical at best and harmful at worst.”

Although AI was not a dominant issue in the midterms, opposition to data centers emerged as a major bipartisan concern in several midterm elections. And Lehane may be right that AI will figure more prominently in discussions over the next couple of years.

Affordability is already emerging as a key issue for the 2028 election, as Americans grapple with inflation, tariffs and the rising cost of living. AI could become an increasingly important part of this conversation as voters insist that data centers are raising electricity bills, that AI is replacing their jobs, and that the economic gains from technology benefit only a handful of wealthy companies.

Lehane acknowledges many of these concerns, but he offers few concrete proposals to prevent the concentration of AI gains. Instead, it largely presents AI as a path to greater prosperity for Americans willing to adopt it.

Take his proposals for the tax code. It suggests incentives for workers to learn AI skills, easier access to capital for entrepreneurs, and new approaches to employee ownership and profit sharing. This is not the same as binding requirements that would ensure that workers share in the wealth generated by AI or that companies pay the costs of displacing workers.

“I was struck by how much of this policy is aimed at a future… that already relies on the mass adoption of AI and the benefit of AI to society, which we haven’t seen yet,” Brennan said. “All of this is based on the need to reap the benefits of AI.”

Brennan said it would make more sense to see things like revising the corporate tax rate or tax incentives for hiring humans rather than automating jobs, as well as ways to prevent companies from accumulating outsized market power.

Lehane’s focus on expanding AI’s economic opportunities, rather than limiting potential harm, extends to data centers. He notes concerns about data centers while pointing to the construction jobs and local tax revenue they could generate. He then warns that politicians who support a moratorium on data centers could jeopardize America’s lead on China, going so far as to compare that position to the 2002 vote authorizing the war in Iraq.

Lehane also places children’s safety and education at the heart of his proposed program, emphasizing the importance of age-appropriate protections and safeguards around AI companions for minors. He also warns against keeping AI out of classrooms, arguing that it could lead to inequities between wealthy students and “kids from rural communities.” But the argument assumes that AI improves learning, a claim that remains unproven and that critics say deserves more scrutiny than more funding or individualized attention from human teachers.

Lehane also calls for enforceable AI safety standards, independent assessments, public oversight, and the ability to restrict AI systems or use a kill switch to shut them down — although recent studies show that OpenAI and other AI labs have not published comprehensive plans for what they would do if a model escaped human control.

Brennan called these positions “misleading,” noting OpenAI’s historical opposition to legislation designed to impose such measures. In 2024, for example, OpenAI opposed California’s AI safety bill, SB 1047, which would have mandated catastrophic risk assessments and shutdown capabilities. Last year, OpenAI also sought to limit state regulation, arguing that states could undermine American innovation. The company recently changed some of those positions, supporting several state safety laws and saying it would be open to independent evaluators embedded within the company.

Lehane also argues that people should retain control over consequential decisions made using AI, rather than entrusting their judgment entirely to machines. But it raises the question of what human control actually looks like in a society where humans are increasingly driven to use AI in education, work, healthcare and government.

Throughout his essay, Lehane presents AI as a technology that could restore Americans’ sense of agency and economic opportunity. But it ties the success of the average American “middle class” to participation in an economy increasingly shaped by companies like OpenAI. It is less clear whether his policies will redistribute power significantly or subtly strengthen it.

TechCrunch contacted OpenAI for more details on Lehane’s proposals and the company’s positions, but he did not respond at the time of publication.