{"id":812,"date":"2026-09-11T09:08:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=812"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:08:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:08:29","slug":"why-openai-hired-chuck-schumers-daughter-away-from-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=812","title":{"rendered":"Why OpenAI Hired Chuck Schumer\u2019s Daughter Away From Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Revolving Door Project, a<\/em> Prospect partner, scrutinizes the executive branch and presidential power. Follow them at therevolvingdoorproject.org.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more What You Missed by Not Watching Trump Last Night<\/a><\/p>\n

Just before the long Labor Day weekend, OpenAI made waves by bringing in major reinforcements to its political staff. First reported by Axios, the artificial intelligence juggernaut added three heavy-hitter lobbyists who can help it appeal to both sides of the aisle, two of whom were hired away from fellow tech giants Amazon and Meta. Headlining the incoming staff is Jessica Schumer, who is leaving her post directing Amazon\u2019s public policy in New York to \u201coversee policy and partnerships across the Northeast\u201d at OpenAI.<\/p>\n

Schumer is a veteran of Democratic politics who has worked in the Obama White House and on Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign. But she\u2019s not just any government relations professional with public-sector experience; if the name didn\u2019t tip you off, Schumer is also<\/em> the daughter of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). She brings to OpenAI knowledge of how Democrats might approach the AI industry\u2019s growing power, both from her firsthand revolver experience and from more tacit understandings culled from the types of personal relationships the child of a Senate leader is able to develop.<\/p>\n

The Schumer family\u2019s deep ties and support to both Wall Street and Silicon Valley are well established by now, and played a central role in legislative fights around antitrust legislation policy in the Biden years. That this allegiance to industry complicates efforts to hold powerful bad actors to account has become almost droll.<\/p>\n

Read more from the Revolving Door Project<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jessica Schumer\u2019s move offers a glimpse into the government influence industry, which relies upon political staff revolving out of public service and the scions of political dynasties renting out access to their relationships and inside information. While the revolving door is a pervasive tool for corporations to influence government actions, there\u2019s an additional arms race for companies to ink deals with the best of the best at bending public servants to private interest.<\/p>\n

If you think about this the way sports fans think about team rosters, it bears remembering that Schumer is not a benchwarmer or even a role-player. She has recently been leading a major campaign for Amazon in New York City, lobbying against expanded worker protection measures from Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration. That\u2019s a huge operation in a crucial market that the company wouldn\u2019t hand over to just anyone. OpenAI didn\u2019t poach a second- or third-stringer; they signed away a starter. Until now, Amazon didn\u2019t have to worry about attracting top-tier talent. But retention may now be an issue when it comes to dependable influence peddlers. And those contracts don\u2019t come cheap.<\/p>\n

This move, in other words, is a statement from OpenAI that they\u2019re in \u201cwin now\u201d mode. But why is that?<\/p>\n

Given how rapidly shifting and generally inscrutable the actual business side of AI products is, it\u2019s difficult to tell whether Amazon and Meta are losing out because they are falling behind in their offerings, or whether their more established businesses have less need for elite talent. OpenAI, after all, doesn\u2019t have market-insulated revenue streams like advertising on Instagram or direct delivery of consumer products; they haven\u2019t had time to get dominant and entrenched. Along with Anthropic, OpenAI\u2019s bet is all-or-nothing on making it rich in LLMs.<\/p>\n

Yet as the leading AI firms try to retain friendly relations with both the Trump administration and Democrats, they have run into a wall of critical public opinion. Billions (soon to be trillions!) of dollars in data center construction have faced a torrent of grassroots opposition, driven by overlapping concerns about energy cost increases, environmental harms, repressive surveillance, and mass unemployment. (Not to mention the disturbing warnings from industry insiders about the risk of human extinction.)<\/p>\n

Read more How Many Judges Does It Take to Sort Out Missouri?<\/a><\/p>\n

OpenAI and Anthropic are building out their government influence rosters against this backdrop. Not only do they seek to scale up government contracts, particularly in the lucrative defense sector; they also want to head off AI regulation, whether meant to protect kids with age filters or civilization with a \u201ckill switch.\u201d<\/p>\n

But you cannot just do that by throwing lobbyists at Congress. Schumer was hired for Northeast operations at the state level, where AI\u2019s government influence has grown. Many states now provide their professional employees with a subscription to either ChatGPT or Claude. States may well step up and provide the regulatory framework that the AI industry has prevented the federal government from providing. And states are the primary political power atop the suite of decisions that govern the citing, permitting, subsidizing, and taxing (or lack thereof) of data centers.<\/p>\n

So OpenAI isn\u2019t just hiring Schumer for the hell of it. They are doing so amid a bipartisan torrent of critical public opinion, while possibly contemplating the need for a public bailout if their valuations are overly optimistic. It is clear that greasing palms is a simpler strategy for OpenAI than trying to turn the tide with an increasingly panicked public.<\/p>\n

The more corrupted the political system, the higher the price that powerful interests will pay to influence it. When governments are responsive to democratic input, power brokers face a relative bear market, with customers less dependent on insider access. When they aren\u2019t, direct lines to policymakers are worth a pretty penny.<\/p>\n

A number of trends in recent decades have put such services in ever greater demand. In-house professionals able to brief officeholders have dwindled; in the past, Congress had potentially the greatest professional support staff, but now most offices are short on career specialists and overly reliant on entry-level workers who don\u2019t stay long-term. That has ballooned the impact of lobbyists, who are now often the easiest path to getting detailed education on technical policy details to politicians. Similar trends have transpired across state governments, independent agencies, and even the political parties. Decision-makers become reliant on outside experts and relationships. And whoever provides those wields greater power over public policy.<\/p>\n

At the same time, campaign finance laws have been eviscerated, along with lax enforcement of measures like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and foreign lobbying standards. And more generally, the Trump administration\u2019s unrelenting corruption seems poised to destroy the shame that shadowy influence-peddling once elicited. (After all, if Trump can self-enrich himself and his family every day of the week and get away with it, why should others concern themselves with more nuanced ethical qualms?) In short, there are more avenues to influence policy behind the scenes than ever.<\/p>\n

And, sadly, the independent news media keeps hitting new lows as long-term trends intersect with tech oligarchs increasingly turning key institutions like Twitter (er, Elon Musk\u2019s X) and CBS News (owned by the all-in-on-AI Ellison family) into pro-plutocratic propaganda.<\/p>\n

The AI industry is now kicking this entire situation into overdrive as it continues an influence campaign simultaneously targeting the White House, Congress, state legislatures across the country, local zoning boards, utility commissions, and more. Like the tobacco and fossil fuel industries that pioneered monumental public relations campaigns, the AI industry is now set up to poison people en masse, with the help of elite political insiders. That\u2019s why they\u2019re paying top dollar for the best of the best.<\/p>\n

Read more Left Anchor: The Odyssey, Reviewed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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