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53
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Caleb Watney.md Normal file
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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
tags:
- Person
- InstituteForProgress
- OpenPhilanthropy
- CoefficientGiving
- AIPolicy
- Metascience
- ThinkTank
summary: "Co-founder and co-chief executive of the Institute for Progress who in July 2026 became Coefficient Giving's first managing director of public policy, taking over its U.S. AI policy grantmaking."
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Institute for Progress]]"
role: "co-chief executive"
start: 2021
end: 2026
fn: 1
- type: director_of
with: "[[Institute for Progress]]"
role: "external board member"
start: 2026
fn: 7
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
role: "managing director of public policy, Coefficient Giving"
start: 2026-07
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Caleb Watney received a bachelor of business administration from [[Sterling College]] and a master's degree in economics from [[George Mason University]], where he was a graduate research fellow at the [[Mercatus Center]]. He was a technology policy fellow at the [[R Street Institute]] and director of innovation policy at the [[Progressive Policy Institute]].[^1][^2]
### Institute for Progress
Watney co-founded the [[Institute for Progress]] (IFP) with [[Alec Stapp]] in 2021 and served as its co-chief executive until 2026, overseeing its metascience, high-skilled immigration and emerging technology policy teams.[^1] Their founding essay of January 20, 2022 borrowed "a framework ... from the effective altruism community" of prioritizing issues "that are important, neglected, and tractable."[^3] [[Open Philanthropy]] (later renamed Coefficient Giving)[^4] gave IFP 1.6 million dollars in October 2021 and 9 million dollars in March 2023.[^5] IFP's returns report Watney's pay as 54,231 dollars for 2021, 163,125 dollars for 2022, 202,500 dollars for 2023 and 240,362 dollars for 2024.[^6] In October 2023 he testified before the [[House Science Committee|House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology]] on federal AI research funding; his IFP work included papers on "X-Labs" for AI-driven science, a response to the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]] on a national AI research and development plan, and, with [[Tim Hwang]], a response to a [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency|DARPA]] request for information on shaping emerging technologies.[^1]
### Coefficient Giving
On July 9, 2026, Coefficient Giving announced that Watney had joined as its "inaugural managing director of public policy," overseeing "our work on U.S. AI policy, our Abundance & Growth Fund, and government relations." It wrote: "We were an early supporter of IFP and think they have an incredible track record of counterfactual policy impact." Watney said: "Coefficient Giving took an early bet on IFP as we were just getting off the ground, and now I'm excited to help scale what we learned across the broader policy ecosystem." He said that "AI may be the most consequential technology transition in modern history," and that he was "equally excited to reunite with my former IFP colleague [[Matt Clancy]] on the Abundance & Growth Fund." Clancy, the fund's program director, said there were "very few people with such extensive national policymaking expertise bridging frontier AI and the work we do at the Abundance & Growth Fund."[^2]
The announcement stated that [[Luke Muehlhauser]] "previously ran the U.S. AI policy portfolio as part of his 'AI Governance & Policy' team. He helped recruit Caleb to take U.S. AI policy off his plate, and Luke has renamed his team 'AI Governance & International Policy' to make the distinction with Caleb's team clear," adding that "our hope is for Caleb to own all of it over time." Watney was building "a team of grantmakers, operators, and policy entrepreneurs to work on U.S. AI policy."[^2] He remained on IFP's board, whose other external members were Dan Correa of the [[Federation of American Scientists]], Zachary Graves of the [[Foundation for American Innovation]] and Tamara Winter of [[Stripe Press]]; IFP listed Clancy, identified as of Coefficient Giving, among its non-resident senior fellows.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Institute for Progress, "Caleb Watney," author biography and publications. https://ifp.org/author/caleb-watney/
[^2]: Coefficient Giving, "Introducing Our New Managing Director of Public Policy, Caleb Watney," July 9, 2026, archived July 14, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260714172124/https://coefficientgiving.org/research/introducing-our-new-managing-director-of-public-policy/
[^3]: Stapp, Alec, and Caleb Watney. "Progress Is a Policy Choice." Institute for Progress, January 20, 2022. https://ifp.org/progress-is-a-policy-choice/
[^4]: Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, "Ethics and Standards policies," February 20, 2026, referring to "Coefficient Giving (formerly known as Open Philanthropy)." https://www.tarbellcenter.org/ethics-and-standards
[^5]: Open Philanthropy, "Institute for Progress, General Support (2023)," grant of March 2023, archived August 26, 2023, with the October 2021 grant. http://web.archive.org/web/20230826080214/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/institute-for-progress-general-support-2023/ ; Open Philanthropy, "Institute for Progress, Policy Research," archived July 1, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220701180156/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/institute-for-progress-policy-research/
[^6]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Institute For Progress," EIN 87-2449729, Form 990 filings for fiscal years 2021 through 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/872449729
[^7]: Institute for Progress, "About." https://ifp.org/about/

51
10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Cari Tuna.md
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@ -14,17 +14,17 @@ relations:
with: "[[GiveWell]]"
role: "board of directors"
start: 2011-04
fn: 6
fn: 7
- type: funded
with: "[[Real Justice PAC]]"
start: 2017-03
end: 2019-04
role: "1.9 million dollars"
fn: 17
fn: 18
- type: head_of
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
role: "chair"
fn: 9
fn: 10
created: 2026-06-19
updated: 2026-09-23
---
@ -33,25 +33,31 @@ Cari Tuna graduated from Yale and reported for *[[The Wall Street Journal]]*, wr
### Early Life
Tuna was raised in Evansville, Indiana, the eldest of three children of two doctors. At [[Signature School]] she was co-valedictorian and student council president and founded the school's [[Amnesty International]] chapter; she was a parishioner at Aldersgate United Methodist Church. At Yale she studied political science and worked on the college paper, wrote for the *[[Evansville Courier & Press]]*, interned at the *[[Minneapolis Star Tribune]]*, spoke some Arabic and Turkish, and considered becoming a foreign correspondent.[^3][^4] At *The Wall Street Journal* she was a junior reporter in the San Francisco bureau covering enterprise technology and the California economy.[^3][^5] In 2009 a *Journal* colleague who knew Moskovitz from college set the two up on a blind date. They married in 2013.[^3]
Tuna was raised in Evansville, Indiana, the eldest of three children of two doctors. At [[Signature School]] she was co-valedictorian and student council president and founded the school's [[Amnesty International]] chapter; she was a parishioner at Aldersgate United Methodist Church. At Yale she studied political science and worked on the college paper, wrote for the *[[Evansville Courier & Press]]*, interned at the *[[Minneapolis Star Tribune]]*, spoke some Arabic and Turkish, and considered becoming a foreign correspondent.[^3][^4] At *The Wall Street Journal* she was a junior reporter in the San Francisco bureau covering enterprise technology and the California economy.[^3][^5] In 2009 a *Journal* colleague who knew Moskovitz from college set the two up on a blind date. They married in 2013.[^3] *Forbes* identified the colleague in 2025 as [[Jessica Lessin]], later chief executive of *[[The Information]]*, and reported that Tuna was born in [[Minnesota]] before growing up in Evansville.[^6]
### GiveWell and Good Ventures
Tuna read about [[GiveWell]] in [[Peter Singer]]'s *The Life You Can Save* and met its co-founder [[Holden Karnofsky]] through a mutual friend; she joined its board in April 2011. In December 2011, as president of [[Good Ventures]], "a foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area which she created with her partner Dustin Moskovitz earlier this year," she announced grants of 500,000 dollars to the [[Against Malaria Foundation]] and 250,000 dollars to the [[Schistosomiasis Control Initiative]], and planned grants to [[GiveDirectly]], [[Innovations for Poverty Action]], [[KIPP Houston]], [[Nyaya Health]], [[Pratham]] and the [[Small Enterprise Foundation]].[^6] In 2012 GiveWell moved its office from New York to San Francisco "to be closer to Tuna and other technology-industry donors," and the joint project GiveWell Labs became the Open Philanthropy Project, led by Tuna, Karnofsky and [[Alexander Berger]]. Asked in 2018 whether she identified as an effective altruist, she answered, "Yes. Do you?"[^1]
Tuna read about [[GiveWell]] in [[Peter Singer]]'s *The Life You Can Save* and met its co-founder [[Holden Karnofsky]] through a mutual friend; she joined its board in April 2011. In December 2011, as president of [[Good Ventures]], "a foundation in the San Francisco Bay Area which she created with her partner Dustin Moskovitz earlier this year," she announced grants of 500,000 dollars to the [[Against Malaria Foundation]] and 250,000 dollars to the [[Schistosomiasis Control Initiative]], and planned grants to [[GiveDirectly]], [[Innovations for Poverty Action]], [[KIPP Houston]], [[Nyaya Health]], [[Pratham]] and the [[Small Enterprise Foundation]].[^7] In 2012 GiveWell moved its office from New York to San Francisco "to be closer to Tuna and other technology-industry donors," and the joint project GiveWell Labs became the Open Philanthropy Project, led by Tuna, Karnofsky and [[Alexander Berger]]. Asked in 2018 whether she identified as an effective altruist, she answered, "Yes. Do you?"[^1]
Tuna has been president of the Good Ventures Foundation on every return since 2015, and its board chair by 2025, with Moskovitz as secretary and treasurer and [[Divesh Makan]] of [[ICONIQ Capital]] as director; none is paid. The foundation's assets reached 10.1 billion dollars in 2025.[^7] Open Philanthropy, which draws nearly all of its grant money from Good Ventures, had given away about 7 billion dollars by September 2026.[^8] In 2026 Coefficient Giving, as [[Open Philanthropy]] was renamed in November 2025, listed her as chair, with Berger as chief executive, [[Emily Oehlsen]] as president, [[Naina Bajekal]] as managing director for communications and [[Luke Muehlhauser]] as managing director for AI governance and international policy.[^9] Announcing the renamed organization's free advisory service in November 2025, Tuna told the Associated Press: "It's always been a vision of mine to create a resource that could support not just Dustin and me, but many donors looking for advice on how to do as much good as they can with their giving." The AP reported that Coefficient Giving is incorporated as a limited liability company with several affiliated tax-exempt nonprofits, that outside donors had given more than 300 million dollars on its advice, and that it had given more than 580 million dollars to build the field of AI-risk research.[^10] In 2025 it launched a 120-million-dollar fund, half from Good Ventures, for research and advocacy against regulatory barriers to housing and energy infrastructure, and the couple joined the [[Gates Foundation]] and [[Lucy Southworth]] in the 100-million-dollar [[Lead Exposure Action Fund]].[^5][^11]
Tuna has been president of the Good Ventures Foundation on every return since 2015, and its board chair by 2025, with Moskovitz as secretary and treasurer and [[Divesh Makan]] of [[ICONIQ Capital]] as director; none is paid. The foundation's assets reached 10.1 billion dollars in 2025.[^8] Open Philanthropy, which draws nearly all of its grant money from Good Ventures, had given away about 7 billion dollars by September 2026.[^9] In 2026 Coefficient Giving, as [[Open Philanthropy]] was renamed in November 2025, listed her as chair, with Berger as chief executive, [[Emily Oehlsen]] as president, [[Naina Bajekal]] as managing director for communications and [[Luke Muehlhauser]] as managing director for AI governance and international policy.[^10] Announcing the renamed organization's free advisory service in November 2025, Tuna told the Associated Press: "It's always been a vision of mine to create a resource that could support not just Dustin and me, but many donors looking for advice on how to do as much good as they can with their giving." The AP reported that Coefficient Giving is incorporated as a limited liability company with several affiliated tax-exempt nonprofits, that outside donors had given more than 300 million dollars on its advice, and that it had given more than 580 million dollars to build the field of AI-risk research.[^11] In 2025 it launched a 120-million-dollar fund, half from Good Ventures, for research and advocacy against regulatory barriers to housing and energy infrastructure, and the couple joined the [[Gates Foundation]] and [[Lucy Southworth]] in the 100-million-dollar [[Lead Exposure Action Fund]].[^5][^12]
### Seven Entities
In 2018 the *Stanford Social Innovation Review* writer [[Marc Gunther]] wrote that Tuna played "a key role in no fewer than seven entities, as a director or major donor": the Open Philanthropy Project LLC; the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], a 501(c)(4); the Open Philanthropy Project fund, a donor-advised fund at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]]; the Good Ventures Foundation; Good Ventures, a supporting organization at the same community foundation; Good Ventures LLC, "a for-profit impact investment firm"; and GiveWell. He wrote that grants through the donor-advised funds "can't be traced back to the original donors." Tuna and Moskovitz were also investors in [[Breakthrough Energy Ventures]].[^1] The Open Philanthropy Action Fund has paid outside lobbyists every year from 2021 through 2026.[^12] Asana's 2026 proxy statement noted that Moskovitz and "his spouse" were directors of Good Ventures, which held Asana shares.[^13]
In 2018 the *Stanford Social Innovation Review* writer [[Marc Gunther]] wrote that Tuna played "a key role in no fewer than seven entities, as a director or major donor": the Open Philanthropy Project LLC; the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], a 501(c)(4); the Open Philanthropy Project fund, a donor-advised fund at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]]; the Good Ventures Foundation; Good Ventures, a supporting organization at the same community foundation; Good Ventures LLC, "a for-profit impact investment firm"; and GiveWell. He wrote that grants through the donor-advised funds "can't be traced back to the original donors." Tuna and Moskovitz were also investors in [[Breakthrough Energy Ventures]].[^1] The Open Philanthropy Action Fund has paid outside lobbyists every year from 2021 through 2026.[^13] Asana's 2026 proxy statement noted that Moskovitz and "his spouse" were directors of Good Ventures, which held Asana shares.[^14]
### Causes
Gunther reported that the cause-selection process Tuna led with Karnofsky and Berger settled on criminal justice reform, farm animal welfare, macroeconomic stabilization, immigration policy and land-use reform, and on two catastrophic-risk areas, biosecurity and advanced artificial intelligence, and that Tuna had concluded that "a lot of philanthropy's biggest claimed successes have come from improving policy."[^1] The criminal justice program, led by the former [[American Civil Liberties Union]] advocate [[Chloe Cockburn]], became an independent organization, [[Just Impact]], in November 2021, with a 50-million-dollar grant over three and a half years.[^14] Its AI grantmaking included 30 million dollars to [[OpenAI]] in 2017, with a board seat for Karnofsky, who later married [[Daniela Amodei]], president of [[Anthropic]].[^1][^15]
Gunther reported that the cause-selection process Tuna led with Karnofsky and Berger settled on criminal justice reform, farm animal welfare, macroeconomic stabilization, immigration policy and land-use reform, and on two catastrophic-risk areas, biosecurity and advanced artificial intelligence, and that Tuna had concluded that "a lot of philanthropy's biggest claimed successes have come from improving policy."[^1] The criminal justice program, led by the former [[American Civil Liberties Union]] advocate [[Chloe Cockburn]], became an independent organization, [[Just Impact]], in November 2021, with a 50-million-dollar grant over three and a half years.[^15] Its AI grantmaking included 30 million dollars to [[OpenAI]] in 2017, with a board seat for Karnofsky, who later married [[Daniela Amodei]], president of [[Anthropic]].[^1][^16]
### Politics
On September 8, 2016, Tuna and Moskovitz jointly announced 20 million dollars in contributions to elect [[Hillary Clinton]], writing that Trump's promises were "quite possibly a deliberate con" and that "we have reservations about anyone using large amounts of money to influence elections."[^16] [[Federal Election Commission]] records itemize about 7.04 million dollars in contributions from Tuna in the 2015-2016 cycle, including 2.5 million each to the [[LCV Victory Fund]] and [[For Our Future PAC]], 1.25 million to [[MoveOn]] and 416,119 dollars to the [[Hillary Victory Fund]]. Between March 2017 and April 2019 she gave 1.9 million dollars to [[Real Justice PAC]], in payments of 653,480 dollars, 350,000, 850,000 and 50,000, and 200,000 dollars to [[Color of Change PAC]]. No contributions from her were itemized after April 2019.[^17]
On September 8, 2016, Tuna and Moskovitz jointly announced 20 million dollars in contributions to elect [[Hillary Clinton]], writing that Trump's promises were "quite possibly a deliberate con" and that "we have reservations about anyone using large amounts of money to influence elections."[^17] [[Federal Election Commission]] records itemize about 7.04 million dollars in contributions from Tuna in the 2015-2016 cycle, including 2.5 million each to the [[LCV Victory Fund]] and [[For Our Future PAC]], 1.25 million to [[MoveOn]] and 416,119 dollars to the [[Hillary Victory Fund]]. Between March 2017 and April 2019 she gave 1.9 million dollars to [[Real Justice PAC]], in payments of 653,480 dollars, 350,000, 850,000 and 50,000, and 200,000 dollars to [[Color of Change PAC]]. No contributions from her were itemized after April 2019.[^18] Six months later, on October 29, 2019, the Open Philanthropy Action Fund, of which Tuna has been president and director on every return since 2017, gave 750,000 dollars to Real Justice PAC's non-contribution account.[^19][^20]
### Giving Totals
In November 2025 *Forbes* reported that the couple had donated more than 4 billion dollars, including more than 600 million in fiscal 2025, and held another 11 billion dollars in Moskovitz's personal fortune and about 10 billion in the Good Ventures Foundation, "plus more in donor-advised funds." A decade earlier they had helped give 1 million dollars to the [[Future of Life Institute]]; in 2017 they put 30 million dollars through their foundation into OpenAI's nonprofit, and Moskovitz invested in Anthropic's 124-million-dollar round of 2021, "before it was obvious that these labs would make money," in Tuna's words. Their Anthropic stake, which *Forbes* estimated at 500 million dollars, was moved into a nonprofit vehicle in early 2025 so that any "significant financial return" would go back into philanthropy and to "dispel any perception of conflict of interest," she said.[^6]
The same article reported that fellow billionaires, among them the [[Stripe]] co-founder [[Patrick Collison]] and Lucy Southworth, the wife of [[Larry Page]], had made more than 200 million dollars of commitments to Open Philanthropy's initiatives that year, seeding the Lead Exposure Action Fund, which had distributed 20 million dollars, 17 million of it to [[Pure Earth]], and the Abundance and Growth Fund. It named the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]], the [[RAND Corporation]] and [[FAR.AI]] as Open Philanthropy's largest AI-safety recipients, and reported that FAR.AI, headed by [[Adam Gleave]], had used 59 million dollars of Open Philanthropy funding. Organizations funded by Open Philanthropy had paid lobbyists at least 3 million dollars that year, and Open Philanthropy itself about 110,000 dollars a quarter. The largest global health recipients were the [[Malaria Consortium]] (307 million dollars), [[Evidence Action]] (206 million) and [[Helen Keller Intl]] (103 million). Berger, the chief executive, and Tuna held weekly walking meetings on strategy and on how quickly funds could be distributed; he said, "We want to build a resource that's ready for the next set of donors."[^6]
### Footnotes
@ -60,15 +66,18 @@ On September 8, 2016, Tuna and Moskovitz jointly announced 20 million dollars in
[^3]: Cha, Ariana Eunjung. "Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz: Young Silicon Valley billionaires pioneer new approach to philanthropy." *The Washington Post,* December 26, 2014, copy hosted by Coefficient Giving. https://coefficientgiving.org/wp-content/uploads/washingtonpost.com-Cari-Tuna-and-Dustin-Moskovitz-Young-Silicon-Valley-billionaires-pioneer-new-approach-to-philanthropy.pdf
[^4]: "Billionaire from Evansville to spread the wealth." WFIE 14 News, December 2014. https://www.14news.com/story/27724783/billionaire-from-evansville-to-spread-the-wealth/
[^5]: Coacci, Jessica. "Meet the millennial Meta cofounder and his wife who are giving away $20 billion." *Fortune,* November 10, 2025, via Yahoo Finance, archived December 26, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251226183707/https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meet-millennial-meta-cofounder-wife-170849820.html
[^6]: Tuna, Cari. "Guest post from Cari Tuna." The GiveWell Blog, December 23, 2011, archived February 7, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260207082111/https://blog.givewell.org/2011/12/23/guest-post-from-cari-tuna/
[^7]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Good Ventures Foundation," EIN 46-1008520, Form 990-PF data through fiscal year ending June 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461008520
[^8]: Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
[^9]: Coefficient Giving, "Team," accessed September 2026. https://coefficientgiving.org/about-us/team/
[^10]: Beaty, Thalia. "Cari Tuna's organization Open Philanthropy to advise other major donors for free." Associated Press, November 18, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/open-philanthropy-cari-tuna-dustin-moskovitz-effective-altruism-0e9e93d9ed9e094f32e4070ecc5b9b2b
[^11]: "TIME100 Philanthropy 2025: Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz." *Time,* May 20, 2025. https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286010/cari-tuna-dustin-moskovitz/
[^12]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, filings for client "Open Philanthropy Action Fund," 2021 to 2026, retrieved September 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Open+Philanthropy+Action+Fund
[^13]: Asana, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm
[^14]: Open Philanthropy, "Criminal Justice Reform (Closed)," archived November 13, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251113222726/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/criminal-justice-reform/
[^15]: Bordelon, Brendan. "How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington." *Politico,* October 13, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20250902172514/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/13/open-philanthropy-funding-ai-policy-00121362
[^16]: Moskovitz, Dustin, and Cari Tuna. "Compelled to Act." *Medium,* September 8, 2016, archived December 31, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20161231130245/https://medium.com/@moskov/compelled-to-act-1413930041ee
[^17]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A, memo entries excluded) for contributor "Tuna, Cari," two-year periods 2016 through 2026, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=Tuna%2C+Cari
[^6]: Liu, Phoebe. "Inside A Billionaire Couple's Plan To Give Away A $20 Billion Facebook Fortune." *Forbes,* November 7, 2025, updated version, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20260730221730id_/https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2025/11/07/cari-tuna-billionaire-open-philanthropy-facebook/
[^7]: Tuna, Cari. "Guest post from Cari Tuna." The GiveWell Blog, December 23, 2011, archived February 7, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260207082111/https://blog.givewell.org/2011/12/23/guest-post-from-cari-tuna/
[^8]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Good Ventures Foundation," EIN 46-1008520, Form 990-PF data through fiscal year ending June 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461008520
[^9]: Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
[^10]: Coefficient Giving, "Team," accessed September 2026. https://coefficientgiving.org/about-us/team/
[^11]: Beaty, Thalia. "Cari Tuna's organization Open Philanthropy to advise other major donors for free." Associated Press, November 18, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/open-philanthropy-cari-tuna-dustin-moskovitz-effective-altruism-0e9e93d9ed9e094f32e4070ecc5b9b2b
[^12]: "TIME100 Philanthropy 2025: Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz." *Time,* May 20, 2025. https://time.com/collections/time100-philanthropy-2025/7286010/cari-tuna-dustin-moskovitz/
[^13]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, filings for client "Open Philanthropy Action Fund," 2021 to 2026, retrieved September 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Open+Philanthropy+Action+Fund
[^14]: Asana, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm
[^15]: Open Philanthropy, "Criminal Justice Reform (Closed)," archived November 13, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251113222726/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/criminal-justice-reform/
[^16]: Bordelon, Brendan. "How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington." *Politico,* October 13, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20250902172514/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/13/open-philanthropy-funding-ai-policy-00121362
[^17]: Moskovitz, Dustin, and Cari Tuna. "Compelled to Act." *Medium,* September 8, 2016, archived December 31, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20161231130245/https://medium.com/@moskov/compelled-to-act-1413930041ee
[^18]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A, memo entries excluded) for contributor "Tuna, Cari," two-year periods 2016 through 2026, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?contributor_name=Tuna%2C+Cari
[^19]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipt from "Open Philanthropy Action Fund," 750,000 dollars, October 29, 2019, reported by Real Justice PAC (C00632554) on its 2019 year-end Form 3X, image 202007029244274196, retrieved September 23, 2026. http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202007029244274196
[^20]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Coefficient Giving Action Fund" (formerly Open Philanthropy Action Fund), EIN 81-2644663, organization record, Form 990 data and Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2016 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/812644663

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10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Lawrence Wechsler.md Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
---
category: "BCCI Scandal"
tags:
- Person
- BCCI
- Lawyer
- IranContra
alias:
- Lawrence H. Wechsler
- Larry Wechsler
summary: "Washington defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor who assembled BCCI's legal team after the 1988 Tampa indictment, negotiated its 1990 plea agreement and lobbied the Senate on the bank's behalf."
relations:
- type: represented
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "defense counsel, Tampa money-laundering case"
start: 1988
fn: 1
- type: represented
with: "[[Albert Hakim]]"
role: "counsel in the Iran-Contra affair"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
role: "prosecutor, United States Attorney's office for the District of Columbia"
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Lawrence H. Wechsler is a [[Washington, D.C.]] criminal defense lawyer and a former prosecutor in the United States Attorney's office for the District of Columbia. In 1992 he practiced with the Washington firm of [[Janis, Schuelke and Wechsler]]. He represented [[Albert Hakim]] in the [[Iran-Contra Affair]], and after the indictment of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] in October 1988 he was brought in by his close friend [[Robert Altman]] to put together the bank's defense team.[^1]
### BCCI Defense
Wechsler recruited [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]], with whom he had worked at the [[Department of Justice]], to coordinate the defense, together with, in the words of the Senate report, a "bevy of other top lawyers." The Senate subcommittee chaired by [[John Kerry]] listed him with [[Raymond Banoun]] and Barcella as the former federal prosecutors among BCCI's Washington "cadre of professional help," which also included [[Clark Clifford]], the former legislators [[John Culver]] and [[Michael Barnes]], and the former [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] attorneys [[Baldwin Tuttle]] and [[Jerry Hawke]].[^1][^2]
At a meeting with Senate staff that the report dates May 14, 1989, Wechsler, Altman and Banoun produced 775 pages of new documents concerning General [[Manuel Noriega]]. The lawyers stated that they had relied on the statements of the BCCI officer [[Amjad Awan]] and had conducted no independent searches for documents in 1988 in response to the subcommittee's subpoena.[^3]
### Plea Agreement
In mid-December 1989 Wechsler and Barcella represented BCCI in a series of meetings with the United States Attorney's office in Tampa and with the [[U.S. Customs|Customs Service]], the [[Internal Revenue Service]] and the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]]. They offered a guilty plea by the bank to money laundering and its cooperation against other launderers in return for a commitment that this would end BCCI's criminal exposure for all offenses then known to the government. The agreement was reached in January 1990, with a forfeiture of 14 million dollars.[^4]
### The Florida License
After the United States Attorney in Tampa, [[Robert Genzman]], told Florida regulators on January 31, 1990, that his office took no position on BCCI's state license, the bank's lawyers, "principally former federal prosecutors Lawrence Wechsler, Lawrence Barcella, and Raymond Banoun," approached others in the Justice Department. On February 13, 1990, [[Charles Saphos]], head of the narcotics section of the Criminal Division, wrote to Florida's comptroller, [[Gerald Lewis]], requesting "that BCCI be permitted to operate in your jurisdiction." Saphos sent copies of his letters "to the Federal Reserve, and to BCCI lawyers Banoun and Wechsler." He withdrew the request three days later. The subcommittee concluded that "Saphos was personally lobbied by people he knew who had formerly been with the Justice Department and now represented BCCI on the outside, and agreed to do them a favor."[^4]
### The Senate
Wechsler declined to meet the subcommittee's staff. The report stated that "documents show that he and Banoun lobbied the US Senate on behalf of BCCI."[^1]
### Gurwin
In 1989 and 1990 Barcella, Altman and the lawyer [[John Vardaman]] of [[Williams & Connolly]] warned the freelance journalist [[Larry Gurwin]], who was writing about BCCI and [[First American Bank|First American]] for *Regardie's* magazine, that it would be improper to link the two institutions. BCCI's British solicitors separately threatened to sue Gurwin over an article in *[[The Economist]]*, basing their charges on information from the Washington lawyers who had spoken to him. According to the Senate report, "At this point Gurwin had only spoken to Wechsler and Barcella."[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm
[^2]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 1, "Executive Summary." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/01exec.htm
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm
[^4]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the U.S. Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm

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---
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- Person
- Pakistan
- BCCI
- MartialLaw
- NuclearProliferation
- AfghanWar
alias:
- Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
- Mohammad Zia ul-Haq
- General Zia
summary: "Pakistani army chief who seized power in 1977, hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, ruled until his 1988 death in a plane crash, and was cultivated by BCCI's Agha Hasan Abedi."
born: 1924-08-12
died: 1988-08-17
location: "Jullundur, British India"
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Pakistan]]"
role: "president and chief martial law administrator"
start: 1977
end: 1988-08-17
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
reverse: true
role: "40 million Pakistani rupees paid by BCCI's United Arab Emirates branch"
start: 1985-05
fn: 2
---
Muhammad Zia ul-Haq was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] army officer who, as chief of army staff, removed Prime Minister [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]] in a pre-dawn army coup in 1977, named himself president and chief martial law administrator, and governed Pakistan until he was killed when his military transport plane exploded after takeoff from [[Bahawalpur]] on August 17, 1988.[^1] Through most of that period [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], founder of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), called on him privately whenever he flew into Pakistan, and in May 1985 BCCI's branch in the [[United Arab Emirates]] paid him 40 million Pakistani rupees.[^2]
### Early Life and Army Career
Zia was born into a middle-class Muslim family in Jullundur, [[British India]], on August 12, 1924. His father, Akbar Ali, was a clerical officer in the British colonial Indian army. Zia was commissioned into the Indian army in 1945 and served in [[Burma]], [[Malaya]] and [[Java]] during the [[World War II|Second World War]]. At partition his family crossed 75 miles of [[Punjab]] into Pakistan. He graduated from the Staff College at [[Quetta]] in 1955 and in 1963 attended the U.S. Command and General Staff College at [[Fort Leavenworth]], Kansas.[^1]
In 1976 Bhutto appointed him army chief of staff over more senior officers. "Shocked, not surprised, when I was selected chief of the army by the former prime minister," Zia later said. "There were 10 chaps senior to me. I was just one of the army."[^1]
### Coup and the Execution of Bhutto
After three months of street fighting by anti-Bhutto rioters, Zia deposed Bhutto in 1977, appointed himself president and chief martial law administrator, and formed a cabinet drawn mostly from the army, navy and air force. He put Bhutto on trial for the alleged murder of a political opponent.[^1] On March 18, 1978, the [[Lahore High Court]] sentenced Bhutto to hang for the murder of Nawab Mohammad Ahmad Khan; the [[Supreme Court of Pakistan]] rejected his appeal on February 6, 1979, and his review petition on March 24, 1979. The execution order read to Bhutto stated: "The president of Pakistan has decided not to interfere in this matter." He was hanged in [[Rawalpindi]] jail, a short walk from Zia's official residence, at four minutes past two on the morning of April 4, 1979, according to the account of the jail's security officer, Lieutenant Colonel Rafiuddin.[^1][^3]
In July 1978 Zia's government issued a White Paper on the conduct of the March 1977 general elections that named Abedi as a source of illegal funds for Bhutto's [[Pakistan People's Party]].[^4] The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]], which placed the coup in 1978, wrote that Abedi "swiftly changed allegiances" to "Bhutto's successor, Islamic 'puritan' General Zia," and that Zia "later executed Bhutto for financial crimes, in which Abedi, among others, was clearly involved, while forming close ties to Abedi, on whose financial skills he increasingly relied."[^2][^4]
### Rule
Zia repeatedly promised elections and withdrew the promise as polling dates approached; United Press International reported that many Western diplomats and Pakistani politicians said he knew he would lose. In 1979 he announced the restructuring of Pakistani society to conform to traditional Islamic law, under which theft could be punished by amputation of the right hand, adultery or rape by stoning, and drinking alcohol by five years' imprisonment and 30 lashes.[^1]
Washington supplied him with 40 [[F-16]] warplanes and other military and economic aid, and channeled aid through Pakistan to the [[Mujahideen|rebels]] fighting the Soviet-backed government of [[Afghanistan]].[^1] Zia arrived in Washington on December 6, 1982, and met Secretary of State [[George Shultz]].[^5] [[Benazir Bhutto]], daughter of the prime minister he had hanged, returned to Pakistan in April 1986 after two years of exile, vowing to remove him. On May 29, 1988, Zia dissolved the National Assembly and dismissed Prime Minister [[Mohammad Khan Junejo]], citing a breakdown of law and order, the slow pace of Islamic reform and official corruption; on July 20 he announced national elections for November 16, and the next day declared they would be held on a non-party basis.[^1]
### BCCI
The Senate report found that although Abedi had been close to Bhutto, it was Zia who governed Pakistan during most of BCCI's existence, and "General Zia who did the most for BCCI." [[Nazir Chinoy]], BCCI's branch chief in Pakistan in the late 1970s and early 1980s, told Senate staff:[^2]
> Every time Mr. Abedi came, he always called on President Zia. President Zia did not meet Abedi during office hours, but in the night when Mr. Abedi would fly in, they would finish official dinners first and I would be sitting with Abedi and Abedi would leave for two to three hours and meet with Zia. It was the President Zia that he spoke to first before speaking to the finance minister. I think that Abedi used Zia and Zia used Abedi also for the gulf countries, when he wanted some assistance. It was a two way street.
The Subcommittee obtained what it described as a sample BCCI payment to Zia: 40 million Pakistani rupees from BCCI's branch in the United Arab Emirates, which the report valued at several hundred thousand dollars. The report's text dates the payment May 26, 1985; its footnote cites a check to General Zia from BCCI-UAE dated May 25, 1985, reproduced in the Senate hearing record (S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 2, pp. 510-511).[^2]
According to the report, the Pakistani government guaranteed BCCI's ability "to push aside immigration and customs requirements for its distinguished Arab visitors on their holidays in Pakistan," and BCCI in return helped the government evade monetary controls. Chinoy described how in 1979, with Pakistan under [[World Bank]] credit ceilings, 50 million dollars was routed through BCCI's Kuwaiti affiliate [[Kuwait International Finance Company|KIFCO]] into BCCI [[Karachi]], so that the central bank could report an increase in Pakistan's dollar reserves to the World Bank. An indictment brought by New York District Attorney [[Robert Morgenthau]] on July 29, 1992, put the sum at 100 million dollars.[^2] The Pakistani BCCI Foundation, which received BCCI's Pakistani profits, obtained tax-free status in 1981 while [[Ghulam Ishaq Khan]] was minister of finance; Ishaq Khan held that post under Zia from 1977 to 1984 and chaired the foundation through the 1980s.[^1][^2]
According to BCCI's former regional manager [[Abdur Sakhia]], it was generally believed among BCCI officials that had Zia been alive in October 1988, when BCCI was indicted in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]] after [[Operation C-Chase]], he would have used his influence with the [[United States]] government to soften the case.[^2]
### Nuclear Program
In May 1986 Representative [[Stephen Solarz]] confronted Zia and other officials with his view, based on U.S. intelligence, that the plant at [[Kahuta]] was producing weapons-grade enriched uranium; the Pakistanis denied it and refused independent verification. In July 1987 [[U.S. Customs]] arrested [[Arshad Pervez]], a Pakistani native living in [[Canada]], while he was trying to export maraging steel and beryllium to Pakistan. In meetings with Zia on August 5, 1987, Under Secretary of State [[Michael Armacost]] said that Washington could not "wink" at Pakistani procurement, said that U.S. information indicated "enrichment levels above 90[percent] have been achieved at Kahuta," and told Zia that the [[State Department]] had alerted the Pakistani government that "there was an issue here that needed to be addressed urgently." Zia replied: "I understand the idea of warning."[^5]
A State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research memorandum of December 29, 1987, concluded that the procurement network "could not exist without the umbrella of government approval, protection, and funding," and that Zia and Junejo had "allowed the nuclear procurement network to flourish and the clandestine ethic to become ingrained in their subordinates and agents." On December 17, 1987, the day a federal jury convicted Pervez, President [[Ronald Reagan]] informed Congress that he had "concluded that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device," and in January 1988 the [[White House]] invoked the Solarz amendment and waived it in the same determination.[^5] The Senate report separately stated that in the late 1980s BCCI provided 10 million dollars in grants to a science institute named for Ghulam Ishaq Khan and directed by [[A.Q. Khan]].[^2]
### Death
On August 17, 1988, a [[C-130]] transport carrying Zia exploded shortly after takeoff from Bahawalpur, 450 miles south of [[Islamabad]], where the party had watched a demonstration of a U.S.-built M-1 tank. The dead included U.S. Ambassador [[Arnold Raphel]]; Brigadier General [[Herbert Wassom]], the senior U.S. military attache; General [[Akhtar Abdur Rahman]], Pakistan's chief of staff; Lieutenant General Mian Mohammad Afzaal, chief of staff of the army; three major generals, five brigadier generals and 13 crew. The State Department counted 39 aboard; Pakistan listed 30 victims. Acting President Ghulam Ishaq Khan said, "There is the possibility of sabotage in the crash," ordered an inquiry, declared a state of emergency, and said elections would be held on November 16. A State Department official discounted sabotage because of the security that surrounded Zia. Vice President [[George H.W. Bush|George Bush]] called the death "a great tragedy."[^1]
Zia was married to Shafiz; they had two sons and three daughters.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Barnetson, Denholm. "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 5, "BCCI's Relationship with Foreign Governments, Central Banks, and International Organizations," section "Pakistan" (citing staff interviews with Nazir Chinoy, March 9 to 16, 1992; staff interview with Abdur Sakhia, October 7, 1991; and S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 2, pp. 510-511). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm
[^3]: Aziz, Shaikh. "A leaf from history: The prime minister is hanged," *Dawn*, February 1, 2015. https://www.dawn.com/news/1160422
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," section "Abedi As Pakistani Political Paymaster" (citing White Paper on the General Elections, Government of Pakistan, July 1978, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 3, pp. 314-317). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^5]: Burr, William, ed. "The Pervez Case and Reagan Administration Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1987," National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 446, November 22, 2013. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb446/