OpenAI brings TBPN in-house under political strategy team

OpenAI has acquired the tech industry talk show TBPN, marking the artificial intelligence company’s first acquisition of a media company. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the show is on track to generate more than $30 million in revenue this year. Following the transaction, TBPN will operate under OpenAI’s strategy team. The acquisition comes as OpenAI already operates its own podcast for long-form conversations with people building technology at the company.

The daily live show, hosted by former tech founders John Coogan and Jordi Hays, airs on YouTube and X for three hours, focusing on tech, business, AI, and defense. The program has built a reputation in Silicon Valley as a space where industry figures can speak candidly. Under the new structure, the show will report to Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief political operative.

The acquisition might cause concern due to the nature of the show and OpenAI’s position. Lehane, a political operative, has a background associated with political dark arts and the vast right-wing conspiracy narrative. He also leads Fairshake, a crypto industry super PAC—a political action committee that can raise unlimited funds—which worked to kneecap anti-crypto candidates in the 2024 election.

Despite these political ties, OpenAI leadership maintains that the show will maintain editorial independence. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s head of AGI deployment, stated that TBPN will “run their programming, choose their guests, and make their own editorial decisions.” Simo noted that the standard communications playbook just doesn’t apply to OpenAI, and that the acquisition will help bring AI to the world to help people understand the daily impact of the technology. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote that he does not expect the hosts to go any easier on the company, while TBPN host Jordi Hays stated that after getting to know Altman and the OpenAI team, what stood out most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right, allowing the team to move from commentary to real impact in how this technology is distributed and understood globally.

Why it matters

This acquisition signals a shift in how AI companies manage their public narrative, moving from traditional public relations to owning the media channels that shape industry discourse globally.