The following statement can be attributed to George Rakis, Executive Director for NextGen Competition (nextgencomp.tech):

The worst-kept secret in Silicon Valley is that Microsoft was a dominant influence within OpenAI, operating the company as an extension of its own. The news that Sam Altman has joined Microsoft reaffirms this and allows the company to acquire OpenAI's intellectual property with ZERO federal oversight or the need for regulatory approval.

Big Tech wants you to think that the success of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic is evidence of a competitive marketplace, but those rising stars are reliant on and beholden to the handful of companies that dominate cloud computing, particularly Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Sam Altman took only three days to dispense with the pretense of Open AI’s ‘non-profit’ mission of developing safe and ethical AI that benefits humanity. It was always window-dressing meant to fool regulators and lawmakers into letting Big Tech circumvent antitrust scrutiny.

We have joined twenty other organizations demanding that the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice proactively shield consumers from these anti-competitive corporate practices. It is deeply concerning that such a critical emerging field as AI development is already heavily concentrated within a select few of the world's largest corporations. We cannot let this type of consolidation continue.

About NextGen Competition

Our mission is to support a robust and competitive technology ecosystem by opposing anti-competitive business practices and promoting greater industry accountability. Specifically, we oppose consolidation in the industry that undermines worker protections and employer accountability, threatens data privacy and security, encourages market concentration, and limits consumer choice. NextGen Competition intends to work with a broad coalition of unions and public interest partners as it seeks to oppose anti-competitive business practices.