OpenAI and Anthropic poach Trump administration officials, competing for Washington's trust

OpenAI and Anthropic are recruiting officials from the Trump administration for senior positions to strengthen ties with Washington. Anthropic has appointed at least two former Trump officials this year, with Chris Liddell joining the board in February and Sihao Huang becoming head of frontier compute strategy in September; OpenAI has hired at least three Trump administration officials, including Dean Ball, who joined in July, and Thomas Lind, confirmed last week. Both companies are currently hiring for several political affairs positions.