- Sam Altman has been tapped to cochair the transition team for San Francisco’s mayor-elect.
- The OpenAI CEO will advise Daniel Lurie as he looks to tackle SF’s drug and homelessness issues.
- Altman has given thousands to Democrats this campaign cycle.
Sam Altman is the latest tech exec to get a seat at the political table.
The OpenAI cofounder and CEO is cochairing the transition team for San Francisco mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, Lurie announced Monday. The other cochairs include alums from local government and nonprofits, as well as Ned Segal, Lurie’s campaign cochair and Twitter’s former CFO.
“I’m excited to help the city I love, and where OpenAI was started, as it begins its next chapter with Mayor-elect Lurie stepping into his new role,” Altman said in a statement to Business Insider.
A spokesperson for OpenAI declined to provide further detail about the position and whether Altman could be assigned a role in Lurie’s administration. Representatives for Lurie did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. According to San Francisco’s campaign finance database, Altman donated $500 to current San Francisco mayor London Breed in 2018.
“I look forward to leaning on them in the days to come as we get ready to tackle some of our biggest challenges, including public safety, making sure we tackle that behavioral health crisis that we see every single day on our streets, making sure we get more housing built, making sure that we streamline the bureaucracy so that once again city hall is working for you,” Lurie said in the announcement.
Crime, drug use, and homelessness were key issues in the election. Positioned as a more moderate Democrat, Lurie beat incumbent Breed. The heir to the Levi Strauss fortune spent over $8 million on his campaign and painted himself as a “political outsider,” having previously founded and run Tipping Point, a nonprofit fighting poverty in the Bay Area.
Lurie received support from many in the Silicon Valley tech community, including six-figure donations from WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum and investors Jonathan Gans and Oleg Nodelman, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Maintaining San Francisco’s place as the center of the tech world was a part of Lurie’s campaign.
“We are going to make sure that we remain the home of AI and that we welcome entrepreneurs and innovators of all shapes and sizes back to San Francisco,” he told The Information following his victory.
“Sam Altman is one of the most important figures on the planet right now,” he added. “We should embrace that. We need to get him to embrace San Francisco.”
Altman gave thousands to support Democrats in federal races this campaign cycle, according to OpenSecrets. BI could not find any contributions from Altman to San Francisco mayoral candidates during this election.
The OpenAI chief is not the only tech executive to get into politics this year.
Elon Musk has been tapped to run president-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” alongside pharma entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. The new department will advise the administration on budget cuts and restructuring.
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