OpenAI confirms weeks of safety talks with Anthropic and DeepMind as FTC chair warns against antitrust exemptions

OpenAI's global policy chief Chris Lehane told reporters in Washington on Tuesday that the company has been working with Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety for several weeks, confirming reporting first carried by Bloomberg. Lehane said it is better to work together to prioritize safety and, according to TechCrunch, said the firms do not need the narrow government antitrust waiver that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed in his essay on pacing the frontier. He is in Washington to work with lawmakers on catastrophic AI risks. Lehane did not elaborate on the substance of the talks. Sam Altman has previously noted that such coordination could create antitrust exposure if it were found to suppress competition. Later the same day, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said at a Georgetown University event that everyone should be deeply suspicious of AI companies seeking antitrust exemptions while also lobbying for new regulations. Ferguson said he was expressing a personal opinion and did not name Anthropic, but Reuters described the remarks as the first public indication of how the Trump administration views the exemption request. He added that President Trump would set federal AI policy. Taken together, the labs are now coordinating on the record without a clear legal shield, and the administration's competition regulator has signaled skepticism toward granting one.