OpenAI's Lehane Frames 2028 Election as Defining Test for AI Policy

OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane argues the 2028 presidential election could be a defining moment for AI, and he has published an essay pressing politicians to build policies that address Americans' concerns about the technology instead of paying lip service to anti-AI sentiment and the backlash against data centers. The essay landed days after Democrats flipped control of Congress in the midterm elections, riding widespread voter frustration over the cost of living.

Lehane compares AI's potential to reshape the economy to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the 1930s federal program and reform agenda enacted after industrialization and the Great Depression shattered the old economic order. Americans today, he writes, feel similarly anxious about losing control over their economic futures. He urges politicians to find a "compelling third path" that lets people share in AI's benefits, and he lays out five policy priorities spanning worker protections, education, AI safety, and data center development.

Why does this matter now?

Affordability is already shaping the 2028 race as Americans grapple with inflation, tariffs, and the rising cost of living. AI could claim a growing share of that conversation as voters worry about data centers raising electricity bills, AI replacing jobs, and economic gains flowing to a handful of wealthy companies. AI did not dominate the midterms, but opposition to data centers emerged as a major bipartisan concern in several races.

Kate Brennan, who leads AI and corporate power policy at the AI Now Institute, told TechCrunch that Lehane's rhetoric marks a notable shift from OpenAI's policy agenda last year, which focused on accelerating AI development, reducing regulatory barriers, and expanding infrastructure.

Many of Lehane's proposals would encourage wider AI adoption and support the infrastructure expansion companies like OpenAI need to grow. The original New Deal established protections for workers and placed constraints on corporate power. Lehane's vision offers less clarity on how it would hold AI companies accountable for the economic disruption their technology could create.

"Invoking a New Deal metaphor is to invoke state capacity to actually benefit the public," Brennan said. "This is written by a private company that is trying to advocate for policies for its own benefit. It is ahistorical at best and harmful at worst."

What does the tax agenda actually propose?

Lehane acknowledges voter concerns but offers few concrete mechanisms to prevent AI's gains from concentrating. He largely pitches AI as a path to prosperity for Americans willing to embrace it. His tax proposals include:

• Incentives for workers to learn AI skills
• Easier capital access for entrepreneurs
• New approaches to employee ownership and profit-sharing

None of these amount to binding requirements that would ensure workers share in AI-generated wealth or that companies pay the costs of displacing workers.

"I was struck by how much of this policy is for a future…that is already predicated on mass AI adoption and AI benefitting society, which we have yet to see," Brennan said. "All of it is predicated on benefitting from AI's upside."

Brennan said more effective measures would include a revised corporate tax rate, tax incentives for hiring human beings rather than automating jobs, and ways to keep companies from amassing outsize market power.

How does Lehane handle data centers?

His emphasis on expanding AI's economic opportunities rather than limiting potential harms extends to data centers. He notes public concerns about them while emphasizing the construction jobs and local tax revenue they could generate. He then warns that politicians who support a data center moratorium could jeopardize America's lead over China, going so far as to compare that stance to the 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war.

What about child safety and education?

Lehane makes child safety and education central to his proposed agenda. He stresses the importance of age-appropriate protections and safeguards around AI companions for minors. He warns against keeping AI out of classrooms, arguing that exclusion could produce inequality between wealthy students and "children in rural communities."

The argument takes for granted that AI improves learning — a claim that remains unproven, and one critics say deserves more examination than more funding or individualized attention from human teachers.

Does the safety agenda match OpenAI's record?

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

Brennan called these stances "disingenuous," pointing to OpenAI's history of opposing legislation designed to impose such measures. The record includes:

• In 2024, OpenAI opposed California's AI safety bill, SB 1047, which would have mandated catastrophic risk evaluations and shutdown capabilities
• Last year, OpenAI sought to limit state regulation, arguing that states could undermine American innovation
• The company has since shifted some positions, backing several state safety laws and saying it would be open to independent evaluators embedded in the company

Lehane also argues that people should maintain control over consequential decisions made using AI rather than handing off judgment entirely to machines. That position raises the question of what human control actually looks like in a society where people are increasingly required to use AI in education, work, health care, and government.

Whose agency does the essay serve?

Throughout the essay, Lehane frames AI as a technology that could give Americans back their sense of agency and economic opportunity. But he ties average Americans' "middle class" success to participation in an economy increasingly shaped by companies like OpenAI. Whether his policies would meaningfully redistribute power or subtly entrench it remains the open question of the document.

TechCrunch reached out to OpenAI for more specifics on Lehane's proposals and the company's stances, but the company did not respond by the time of publication.

The 2028 campaign has effectively begun. OpenAI has now placed its policy preferences on the table two years early, and the gap between Lehane's New Deal framing and his company's lobbying history will give both parties material to work with as data center fights, job displacement fears, and AI safety bills move toward the center of the electorate's cost-of-living anxiety.