The Pulse
OpenAI adds three state-policy leaders as AI rules multiply
OpenAI is adding Jessica Schumer, Caulder Harvill-Childs and Thomas MacLellan to its global affairs team as states advance new AI laws. The hires support the company’s strategy of shaping state rules while Congress struggles to establish a
AI.info Team ·
OpenAI is expanding its state-policy operation with three senior hires as lawmakers across the United States push ahead with artificial-intelligence rules that Congress has yet to replace with a national standard.
The additions place Democratic and Republican policy experience, technology-sector lobbying and cyber policy expertise inside OpenAI’s global affairs team. The company is betting that state capitals will help define the rules governing advanced AI, even as it continues to argue that federal legislation should ultimately set the country’s framework.
OpenAI confirmed the appointments to Axios on September 5, 2026.
Three hires for a fight moving through state capitals
Jessica Schumer will oversee policy and partnerships across the Northeast. She served as chief of staff at the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration and most recently led Amazon’s public-policy work in New York.
Caulder Harvill-Childs will lead state-level policy and partnerships across the Southeast. Before joining OpenAI, Harvill-Childs managed public policy for Meta and worked for Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, giving the company a Republican policy veteran with state legislative experience.
Thomas MacLellan will lead OpenAI’s state cyber-defense policy. His more than two decades of experience include senior roles at Palo Alto Networks, Symantec and FireEye, as well as work at the National Governors Association.
OpenAI’s state strategy has a federal goal
The appointments reinforce a strategy that Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane calls “reverse federalism”: encouraging large states to adopt similar safeguards so their combined rules become a practical national baseline.
“States can move us there by passing laws that mirror one another,” Lehane wrote in a July 15 OpenAI policy essay. He argued that California, New York and Illinois were moving toward shared requirements for risk assessments, serious-incident reporting and independent audits.
OpenAI’s approach reflects a tension in its policy position. The company wants a national system for frontier AI, particularly where national security and advanced cyber capabilities are involved. At the same time, it is supporting state measures while federal lawmakers remain unable to produce legislation with a clear path to passage.
California and New York give the strategy its test cases
OpenAI has already influenced policy debates in California and New York, according to Axios. The company’s state operation now has to manage a wider set of issues, including transparency requirements, cyber-defense standards and partnerships with state governments.
Lehane’s July essay said California, New York and Illinois were aligning around three broad elements: documented safety frameworks for frontier models, public disclosure of assessments and results, and independent oversight through audits. OpenAI has argued that similar provisions could create a de facto national standard without requiring every state to write identical legislation.
The company has also warned that poorly coordinated state rules could create compliance problems for developers, particularly smaller companies that lack the legal and technical staff of major AI laboratories. Its preferred outcome is a federal framework that takes the strongest common elements from state laws while leaving states room to regulate areas such as youth safety, education and consumer protection.
Cyber policy raises the stakes
MacLellan’s appointment signals that OpenAI sees state cyber policy as more than a conventional lobbying issue. State governments operate critical infrastructure, oversee emergency systems and increasingly consider how advanced AI should be tested before deployment in public-sector settings.
OpenAI’s July policy paper said the federal government should lead testing of the most capable systems because frontier AI raises national-security questions that states cannot fully handle on their own. The company also called for independent audits, incident reporting, strong security standards and whistleblower protections.
That division of responsibility will shape MacLellan’s work. OpenAI wants states to establish compatible safeguards, while reserving the most sensitive technical and national-security assessments for federal institutions with greater resources and access to classified systems.
Why the hires matter now
The three appointments arrive as state lawmakers continue to act faster than Congress on AI oversight. OpenAI’s policy team will have to build relationships with officials who may want stricter controls on model developers, while also defending the company’s preference for coordinated rules rather than a collection of conflicting requirements.
The hires give OpenAI dedicated senior representatives in the Northeast and Southeast, plus a specialist focused on cyber defense. Their work will be judged against a simple test: whether the company can turn a patchwork of state proposals into rules that protect the public without blocking the federal framework it says the country still needs.