OpenAI has spent the past year positioning itself as a driver of American jobs, investing heavily in domestic infrastructure and talking up its role in the US economy. This week, that image collided with a less flattering finding from its own hiring records.
The US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig will pay $3.2 million to settle allegations that the companies discouraged qualified American workers from applying to certain roles while quietly favouring candidates on temporary work visas instead.
This case is not really about OpenAI hiring foreign talent, something every major tech company does legally every year. It is about the specific, narrower rules governing how that hiring is supposed to happen, and what regulators say OpenAI did not follow.
David Adubiina
What the DOJ Accused OpenAI of Doing
The investigation, run by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, focused on OpenAI's use of the Permanent Labour Certification programme, known as PERM. This process allows employers to sponsor a foreign worker for permanent residency, but only after making a genuine, good-faith attempt to find a qualified American for the role first.
Investigators concluded that OpenAI and Statsig did not meet that bar. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon put the department's position plainly. "It is illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers by preferring temporary visa holders for jobs," she said, adding that the settlement was designed to ensure American workers "receive a fair opportunity for highly sought-after technology positions."
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