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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "ARI"
- "Americans For Responsible Innovation Ltd"
- "ARI PAC"
tags:
- Organization
- AIPolicy
- Lobbying
- EffectiveAltruism
- OpenPhilanthropy
- PoliticalActionCommittee
summary: "Washington 501(c)(4) AI-policy lobby founded in late 2023 by former congressman Brad Carson and Eric Gastfriend, funded by Coefficient Giving and Omidyar Network, whose PAC is financed by AI-safety researchers."
start: 2023
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Brad Carson]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Eric Gastfriend]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Brad Carson]]"
reverse: true
role: "president"
fn: 4
- type: head_of
with: "[[Eric Gastfriend]]"
reverse: true
role: "executive director; treasurer of ARI PAC"
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Douglass Calidas]]"
reverse: true
role: "senior vice president of government affairs"
start: 2024
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Satya Thallam]]"
reverse: true
role: "senior vice president of government affairs"
start: 2024-05
fn: 3
- type: funded
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
reverse: true
role: "listed donor, as Coefficient Giving"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Omidyar Network]]"
reverse: true
role: "listed donor"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Inclusive Abundance Action]]"
reverse: true
role: "listed donor"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid]]"
reverse: true
role: "registered outside lobbying firm"
start: 2024
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Navigators Global]]"
reverse: true
role: "registered outside lobbying firm"
start: 2024
end: 2024
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Mindset Advocacy]]"
reverse: true
role: "registered outside lobbying firm"
start: 2025
fn: 5
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Neil Hill Global Strategies]]"
reverse: true
role: "registered outside lobbying firm"
start: 2025
fn: 5
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) is a [[Washington, D.C.]] nonprofit that lobbies on the regulation of artificial intelligence. It states that it "was founded in late 2023 by former Congressman [[Brad Carson]] (President) and tech entrepreneur [[Eric Gastfriend]] (Executive Director)," and that its mission is to "help U.S. policymakers develop a thoughtful governance framework for rapidly advancing technologies that protects the public from harm while continuing to foster innovation."[^1] Its public launch was announced on March 6, 2024, in a letter signed by the two men as co-founders, describing themselves as "a former member of Congress and health tech startup founder, respectively," and stating that ARI was "funded by individuals who share our concern for responsible innovation, rather than by industry."[^2] Its offices are at 750 17th Street NW, Suite 1200, in Washington. A sister 501(c)(3), the [[Center for Responsible Innovation]], operates alongside it.[^1]
### Funding
ARI describes itself as "a 501c4 nonprofit organization" and lists as its supporters "organizations including [[Inclusive Abundance Action]], [[Omidyar Network]], and Coefficient Giving and ... individual donors including Brad Carson & Julie Carson, Eric Gastfriend & Caroline Mehl, and Steve Newman." It states that it does "not take money from for-profit corporations or non-U.S. entities" and that it is "run fully independently of our donors." It adds that it is "recommended for giving by [[Founders Pledge]]."[^1] Coefficient Giving is the name adopted in November 2025 by [[Open Philanthropy]], the grantmaker funded by [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Cari Tuna]].
The organization is registered with the [[Internal Revenue Service]] as Americans For Responsible Innovation Ltd, EIN 93-3248564, under section 501(c)(4). For 2023 it reported revenue of 501,673 dollars, 500,100 dollars of it contributions, expenses of 23,064 dollars and no executive pay. For 2024 it reported revenue of 5,244,469 dollars, almost all of it contributions, expenses of 2,592,128 dollars and net assets of 3,130,427 dollars; executive compensation came to 1,095,356 dollars, 42.3 percent of expenses. The 2024 return listed [[Douglass Calidas]], senior vice president of government affairs, at 438,631 dollars; [[Satya Thallam]], senior vice president of government affairs from May 2024, at 265,156 dollars; Gastfriend, executive director, at 253,159 dollars; [[Adam Pastrich]], chief of staff from June 2024, at 102,711 dollars; Carson, president, at no salary; and [[Thomas Adelson]], board member and treasurer from December 2024.[^3]
### Staff and Advisers
Carson is described on ARI's staff page as a former president of the [[University of Tulsa]], former congressman, [[Under Secretary of the Army]] and acting [[Under Secretary of Defense]]; Gastfriend as the former chief executive and president of DynamiCare Health, "a digital health startup with awards from NIH & FDA." Calidas, listed as Doug Calidas, is a former chief of staff to Senator [[Amy Klobuchar]] and former chief counsel to Senator [[Joe Manchin]]. The chief of staff, [[Blair Mallin]], was director of operations to [[Samantha Power]] at [[USAID]] and to Klobuchar. Other staff came from the [[Bureau of Industry and Security]] (policy director [[Rachel Hovde]]), the [[Department of the Treasury]] and [[Tanium]] (Pastrich), the offices of Senator [[John Barrasso]] and the [[Department of Transportation]] ([[Mitch Kominsky]]), the Navy staff at [[The Pentagon]] ([[Jared Wilhelm]]), the [[National Security Innovation Network]] of the [[Department of Defense]] ([[Michael Dila]] and [[Morgan C. Plummer]]), the [[Air Force Research Laboratory]] ([[George Dougherty]]) and the [[House Select Committee on the CCP]]. [[McKenna Fitzgerald]], in external relations, is a former research manager at the [[ML Alignment & Theory Scholars|MATS]] AI-safety training program and former deputy director of the [[Global Catastrophic Risk Institute]].[^4]
Its board of advisors, which "have no official authority in our decision-making process," comprises [[Scott Aaronson]] of the [[University of Texas at Austin]]; [[Erik Brynjolfsson]] of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab; [[Gillian Hadfield]] of [[Johns Hopkins University]], a "former Senior Policy Advisor, Open AI"; [[Samuel Hammond]] of the [[Foundation for American Innovation]]; [[Stuart Russell]], director of the [[Center for Human-Compatible AI]] at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]; and the former congressman [[Tim Ryan]].[^4]
### Lobbying
ARI registered as its own lobbyist in the first quarter of 2024, reporting 50,000 dollars in lobbying expenses, with Calidas as its lobbyist; in the second quarter it reported 220,000 dollars, listing Calidas and Thallam and naming the House, the Senate and the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] among the bodies lobbied. Its quarterly expenses were 230,000 and 200,000 dollars in the second half of 2024; 260,000, 330,000, 450,000 and 470,000 dollars in the four quarters of 2025, or 1.51 million dollars for the year; and 480,000 and 620,000 dollars in the first two quarters of 2026. Under both issue codes it used, computer industry and science and technology, the filings give the same description: "Issues related to the responsible governance of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies."[^5]
Four outside firms have been registered to lobby for ARI. [[Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid]] has filed for it continuously since the first quarter of 2024, its quarterly fee rising from 20,000 to 90,000 dollars; the lobbyists on its first registration were [[Lisa Kountoupes]], a former deputy assistant to the president and House liaison and former assistant director for legislative affairs at the [[Office of Management and Budget]]; [[Clayton Patrick Hayes]], a former chief of staff to Manchin and deputy legislative director to Senator [[Evan Bayh]]; [[Adam Hechavarria]], a former legislative director to Senators [[Todd Young]] and [[Kelly Ayotte]]; [[MJ Kenny]], a former deputy floor director for the Senate Democratic whip and aide to Senator [[Richard Durbin]]; and [[David Paul Peluso]], a former chief of staff to Representatives [[Cathy McMorris Rodgers]] and [[Gus Bilirakis]]. [[Navigators Global]], formerly DC Navigators, filed from the first to the third quarter of 2024 at 40,000 to 50,000 dollars a quarter, with the lobbyists [[Andy Keiser]], [[Ryan Berger]] and [[Philmore B. Anderson]]. [[Mindset Advocacy]] registered in the second quarter of 2025 at 80,000 dollars a quarter, and [[Neil Hill Global Strategies]] in the fourth quarter of 2025 at 20,000 to 40,000 dollars.[^5]
Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid and Navigators Global were also registered as outside lobbying firms for [[Anthropic]], the first reporting 10,000 dollars from Anthropic in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second 30,000 to 60,000 dollars a quarter in 2026.[^6]
### ARI PAC
Americans for Responsible Innovation Ltd. Political Action Committee (ARI PAC), [[Federal Election Commission]] identifier C00893883, registered on December 11, 2024, as a lobbyist-registrant political action committee of a membership organization, at ARI's address and with Gastfriend as treasurer. Through its report of July 15, 2026, it had received 390,475 dollars in contributions, 99.2 percent of them from individuals, had given 329,000 dollars to federal candidates and held 49,150.51 dollars in cash.[^7]
Its itemized receipts consist almost entirely of 5,000-dollar contributions, the annual limit on an individual's contribution to a political action committee, many of them repeated in 2025 and 2026. The employers entered on the filings include Anthropic, for [[Todor Markov]], [[Peter Lofgren]], [[Evan Hubinger]], [[Daniel Ziegler]], [[Jan Leike]], [[Scott Johnston]], [[Steven Bills]], [[Andrew Charles Callahan]], [[Samuel R. Bowman]], [[Jascha Sohl-Dickstein]] and [[Adam Jermyn|Adam S. Jermyn]]; Open Philanthropy, for its program director [[Claire Zabel]] and for [[Howard Lempel]], each giving twice; [[METR]], for [[Benjamin West]], [[Sydney Von Arx]], [[Lawrence Chan]] and [[Tao Lin]]; [[Redwood Research]], for its chief executive [[Michael Shlegeris]], [[Ryan Greenblatt]], [[Vivek Hebbar]], [[Aryan Bhatt]] and [[Alex Mallen]]; the [[Alignment Research Center]], for [[Eric Neyman]]; [[OpenAI]], for [[Julie Steele]] and [[Dillon Bowen]]; and [[Google DeepMind]], for [[Kate Woolverton]]. Gastfriend himself gave 5,000 dollars on February 21, 2025, and again on May 9, 2026, listing his employer as ARI.[^8] Several of the same donors (Lofgren, Leike, Jermyn, Bowen and Woolverton) gave again in 2026 to the super PAC Public First, affiliated with [[Public First Action]], Lofgren giving 999,900 dollars and Leike 400,000 dollars.[^9]
Among the PAC's other donors was [[Derek Kaufman]] of [[Greenwich, Connecticut]], who gave 5,000 dollars listing "Inclusive Abundance" as his employer.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Americans for Responsible Innovation, "About Us," accessed September 23, 2026. https://ari.us/about-us/
[^2]: Carson, Brad, and Eric Gastfriend. "Announcing Americans for Responsible Innovation." Americans for Responsible Innovation, March 6, 2024. https://ari.us/announcing-americans-for-responsible-innovation/
[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Americans For Responsible Innovation Ltd," EIN 93-3248564, Form 990 data for 2023 (filed April 10, 2025) and 2024 (filed November 17, 2025). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/933248564
[^4]: Americans for Responsible Innovation, "Our Team," accessed September 23, 2026. https://ari.us/team/
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, 38 registrations and quarterly reports for client "Americans for Responsible Innovation," first quarter 2024 to second quarter 2026, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Americans+for+Responsible+Innovation
[^6]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, filings with client "Anthropic," 2023 to second quarter 2026, retrieved September 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Anthropic
[^7]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00893883, "Americans for Responsible Innovation Ltd. Political Action Committee," registration and financial totals through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00893883/
[^8]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A) for committee C00893883, 94 records, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00893883
[^9]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A) for committee C00930503, "Public First," retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00930503

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Oil
- Pakistan
- BCCI
- Nominees
alias:
- The Attock Oil Company Limited
- Attock Oil Company
- AOC
summary: "Oil company incorporated in England in 1913 and operating in Pakistan, called BCCI's oil company by the Senate, in which Kamal Adham, Faisal al-Fulaij and Ghaith Pharaon held interests as BCCI nominees."
start: 1913-12-01
location: "England and Pakistan"
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
reverse: true
role: "described by the Senate report as BCCI's oil company; interests held through nominees"
fn: 3
- type: owned
with: "[[Kamal Adham]]"
reverse: true
role: "nominee shareholder for BCCI; loans secured by the shares booked at ICIC"
fn: 2
- type: owned
with: "[[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]]"
reverse: true
role: "nominee for BCCI in stock transactions"
fn: 3
- type: owned
with: "[[Ghaith R. Pharaon]]"
reverse: true
role: "nominee interest for BCCI, eliminated in the National Bank of Georgia sale"
fn: 4
---
The Attock Oil Company Limited is an oil company incorporated in [[England]] on December 1, 1913, which operates in [[Pakistan]] as the branch of a foreign company. The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] called it "BCCI's oil company" and listed it among the affiliates of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) whose shares were held by nominees with money advanced by BCCI's [[Cayman Islands]] affiliate, [[ICIC]].[^1][^2][^3]
### Company
The company made its first discovery at Khaur, in the [[Attock District]], in 1915, and opened the [[Potwar Basin]], which by the company's account remained the only oil-producing basin in Pakistan until the early 1970s. In 1978 it transferred its exploration and production business to its subsidiary [[Pakistan Oilfields Limited]] and its refining business to [[Attock Refinery Limited]].[^1]
### BCCI Nominees
ICIC (Overseas) Limited, incorporated on April 6, 1976, to trade BCCI shares and provide private banking to BCCI shareholders, "also advanced funds to nominees to allow them to purchase interests in the three other BCCI affiliates," according to the Senate report, which named them as Attock Oil, [[Credit and Commerce Insurance]] and the [[Saudi Development Company]].[^2]
At the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] hearing of April 23, 1981, on the acquisition of [[Financial General Bankshares]] by [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), Sheikh [[Kamal Adham]] testified that he had not met his fellow investor [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]] for ten years and that their joint involvement was coincidence. The Senate report found the statement false: "In fact, both had been involved with other transactions involving BCCI, including acting as nominees for BCCI in connection with recent stock transactions involving BCCI's oil company, Attock Oil."[^3]
On August 2, 1987, the BCCI officer H. M. Kazmi wrote to Adham confirming that he was not liable for any loans recorded in his name on the books of ICIC, "including Adham's loans secured by his shares of CCAH for the First American Bank and Attock Oil." The letter appears in the report among examples, drawn from [[Price Waterhouse]]'s June 17, 1991 report on the ICIC group, of ICIC handling BCCI's relations with its nominees.[^2]
[[Ghaith R. Pharaon]] also held a nominee interest. From 1985 BCCI made payments to Pharaon structured as loans against the expected proceeds of the sale of his half of the [[National Bank of Georgia]]; in December 1986, in the words of the Federal Reserve's charges, "BCCI caused CCAH to agree to purchase the shares of NBG [Financial] from Pharaon for $220 million," and the funds that passed from BCCI through [[First American Bank|First American]] to the Georgia bank paid off the loans. "Ironically, since the 'loans' were used by BCCI to wipe out Pharaon's shares of BCCI itself and Pharaon's interests as a nominee in other BCCI-related institutions such as Attock Oil, the entire transaction was largely a wash," the Senate report concluded, eliminating Pharaon's nominee interests in the National Bank of Georgia, BCCI and BCCI-related entities.[^4]
Attock Oil is a separate company from [[Attock Cement]], a Pakistani cement company in which the Pakistani BCCI Foundation made a 3 million dollar "investment," and which the Senate report described as "ostensibly owned by BCCI front-man Ghaith Pharaon, but in fact a front for BCCI itself."[^5]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "About AOC," The Attock Oil Company Limited. https://the-aoc.com/
[^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. 4, "BCCI's Criminality" (citing Price Waterhouse, Report to the Director on ICIC Group, June 17, 1991). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry and FGB and NBG Takeovers," section "The April 23, 1981 Federal Reserve Hearing." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm
[^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. 7, "BCCI in the United States, Part Two: Acquisition, Consolidation, and Consequences." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/07later.htm
[^5]: 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 S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 4, pp. 392-393). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- BCCI
alias:
- BankAmerica
- BofA
summary: "San Francisco bank that supplied BCCI's founding capital and Western credibility in 1972, held up to 30 percent of it, and sold out to BCCI's affiliate ICIC from 1978 while keeping a correspondent relationship."
location: "San Francisco, California, USA"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Yves Lamarche]]"
reverse: true
role: "former manager of Bank of America's Middle East operations; BCCI director"
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Alvin C. Rice]]"
reverse: true
role: "executive vice president"
start: 1976
fn: 4
- type: investigated
with: "[[Office of the Comptroller of the Currency]]"
reverse: true
role: "London examination of Bank of America's overseas holdings, including BCCI"
start: 1977
end: 1978
fn: 4
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Bank of America, then based in [[San Francisco]], became in 1972 the first Western partner of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), supplying its initial capital. It announced the sale of its stake in January 1978, and the Senate report dates its withdrawal to 1980.[^1][^2]
### The 1972 Investment
[[Agha Hasan Abedi]] needed, in the words of the Senate report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]], five things to create BCCI, among them "a source of capital, $2.5 million, which Abedi ultimately obtained from Bank of America," and "credibility in the international community, through a relationship with an established Western financial institution which would provide prestige to BCCI, but not interfere with its unique approach to banking. This too was provided by Bank of America during BCCI's formative years."[^1]
Abedi's first choice of partner, [[American Express]], insisted on a major say in management. Bank of America, then "one of the most aggressive of U.S. international banks, with a presence in Iran already and in Pakistan," gave BCCI recognition in the West and access to its correspondent network, and gained "a potentially lucrative entry to Arab oil wealth, at a tiny capitalization cost of just $2.5 million." After what Abedi called "an historic lunch" in San Francisco, the bank agreed to be a passive partner. Abedi told *[[Euromoney]]* in 1978: "Bank of America agreed to become a shareholder, but we made it a condition that we would establish the management style."[^2]
Senior Bank of America officials sat on BCCI's board, recruited bankers for it and approved its major loans. The directors drawn from the bank included [[Yves Lamarche]], who had managed its [[Middle East]] operations, [[J. D. Van Oenen]], a European official, and [[P. C. Twitchen]], a former vice president.[^2] [[Roy P. M. Carlson|Roy Carlson]] spent twenty years at Bank of America, was stationed in [[Tehran]] in the 1960s and [[Beirut]] in the early 1970s, became head of its operations in the Middle East and East Africa, and advised Abedi on the formation of BCCI in 1972; he later became president of the [[National Bank of Georgia]] while it was secretly owned by BCCI.[^2][^3]
BCCI's own group profile of the mid-1980s stated that its "initial paid up capital of $2.5 million wa[s] subscribed by Bank of America (25% later increased to 30%) and the balance by investors from the Middle East." Apart from Bank of America's 2.5 million dollars and 500,000 dollars acknowledged by [[Abu Dhabi]], the subcommittee found no evidence of other substantial cash in the bank's early years. A register of BCCI's shares in Bank of America's files as of September 30, 1977, showed [[ICIC]] as majority owner with 50.1 percent, Bank of America with 30 percent, [[Majid Al Futtaim|Majid Al-Futaim]] of [[Dubai]] with 4 percent and the family of Abu Dhabi with 3.4 percent; the same records showed several shareholders on the Luxembourg register acting as nominees for BCCI.[^2]
### Disquiet, 1976 to 1978
By 1976 Bank of America had stopped contributing to BCCI's capital increases, and its share fell from 30 to 24 percent. On May 10, 1976, Executive Vice President [[Alvin C. Rice]] wrote to Senior Vice President [[Scudden Hersman Jr.]] that "We are just not operating on the basis of mutual trust and cooperation that make the whole effort and exercise worthwhile. Substantial profits usually have a way of curing problems but this case is an exception. If we can't make some major breakthroughs in the near future, we will have to consider alternatives such as divestiture." A memorandum of May 26, 1976, after Rice met Abedi, recorded: "According to Abedi, frank criticism 'American style' is something Pakistanis are not accustomed to. Criticism is taken as a personal affront and for this reason, sometimes BCCI officers have not wanted to disclose fully operating procedures that they knew would not meet BofA's quality standards." Both memoranda became exhibits in the 1978 litigation over the takeover of [[Financial General Bankshares]]. Rice later told journalists that BCCI believed even obstacles with regulators could be fixed through "baksheesh."[^4]
A BCCI case study written in 1982 by the officer [[K. K. Elley]] gave the bank's version: "The Bank of America found on their hands an affiliate which had already become one of their largest and in which they had no management control."[^4]
In the fall of 1977 an examiner of the [[Office of the Comptroller of the Currency]] in London, responsible for Bank of America's overseas holdings, began asking questions, and by February 1978 he had concluded that Bank of America was substantially at risk from BCCI.[^4] The examiner, [[Joseph E. Vaez]], also found that BCCI had used nominees in purchases of other banks.[^5]
### Divestiture
While Bank of America held its stake, BCCI could not legally buy a bank outside [[California]]; the Senate report put the stake at 24 percent at the time of the late 1977 moves on the National Bank of Georgia and Financial General Bankshares, and elsewhere at 28 percent.[^3] The report found that divestiture served both banks: "BCCI needed to sever its relationship with Bank of America to provide itself with additional options in connection with its ongoing attempt to buy Financial General Bankshares. Bank of America needed to reduce what might soon become an actual liability on its books." A press release of January 30, 1978, announced the sale of its shares to ICIC, described as "one of the other major BCCI shareholders," and stated that "the close co-operation that has developed between the two banks will be maintained."[^4]
The report found that ICIC "owned" 70 percent of BCCI "in 1980 upon Bank of America's withdrawal."[^2] In 1980 and 1981 the [[Abu Dhabi Investment Authority]] acquired a 10 percent stake in BCCI from ICIC, after ICIC had agreed to buy back the shares of "its departing U.S. partner, Bank of America."[^6]
### After 1978
According to the Senate report, over the following decade Bank of America "would in fact maintain correspondent banking relationships with BCCI, continually seek additional business from BCCI, collude in at least one of BCCI's purchases of foreign banks through nominees in South America, and earn a great deal of money from the relationship until BCCI's closure."[^4] In 1988 the manager of BCCI's Paris branch, [[Nazir Chinoy]], described loans of over five million dollars as ordinarily requiring a credit report "based on the Bank of Americas loan reporting procedure adopted years ago."[^7] Bank of America International in New York was the main American bank of a [[Cayman Islands]] investment fund run through BCCI's commodities affiliate [[Capcom]].[^8]
### 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. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," section "Critical Elements of BCCI's Creation." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^2]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 3, sections "Bank of America" and "Ownership of BCCI." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry and FGB and NBG Takeovers"; ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm ; https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
[^4]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 3 (citing Bank of America memoranda of May 10 and May 26, 1976, Lamarche deposition exhibits 6 and 7, August 1978, FGB litigation; and the OCC report of Joseph Vaez, February 15, 1978). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 12, "The Regulators." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/12reg.htm
[^6]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Stockholders." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm
[^7]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 7, "BCCI in the United States: Part Two" (staff interview with Nazir Chinoy). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/07later.htm
[^8]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 21, "Capcom: A Case Study of Money Laundering," note 99. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/21capcom.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- BCCI
- Paris
- FirstAmerican
- FinancialGeneral
alias:
- BAII
- B.A.I.I.
- Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissement, Paris
summary: "Arab-owned Paris consortium bank sharing directors with BCCI, which lent 50 million dollars for the 1982 Financial General takeover and passed BCCI money to Ghaith Pharaon for Independence Bank."
location: "Paris, France"
relations:
- type: funded
with: "[[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]]"
role: "lead lender, 50 million dollar acquisition loan to FGB Holding Corp."
start: 1982-03
fn: 1
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "directors in common"
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissement (BAII) was a consortium bank in [[Paris]]. In 1982 it lent the money that completed the purchase of [[Financial General Bankshares]], later [[First American Bank|First American]], by [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), the holding company that the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) secretly controlled. The tender offer for the Financial General shares stated that BAII was "not affiliated with the Purchaser or the Investors." The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]] described it as "a bank which shared directors in common with BCCI," and the minority staff of the [[House Banking Committee]] as "an Arab-owned French investment bank."[^1][^2][^3]
### The 1982 Loan
In the offer to purchase all outstanding Financial General shares at 33.80 dollars each, the bidder, FGB Holding Corp., estimated that it needed about 185 million dollars, of which about 137.2 million would come from CCAH's shareholders "from their personal resources." BAII agreed "to lend the Purchaser up to $50 million to be used in acquiring Shares and paying related expenses," under a commitment expiring March 2, 1983. The principal was repayable over the fourth to tenth years after drawdown, at the three-month or six-month London Interbank Offered Rate plus 1.5 percent, and BAII "has been and shall be paid $750,000 representing commitment fees of $100,000 and management fees of $650,000." Deposits for each payment were to be made with BAII in advance, and "Messrs. Adham and Fulaij will unconditionally and irrevocably guarantee the payment of such funds and such interest thereon." The purchaser pledged all the shares it acquired, and "BAII intends to syndicate the loan to several banks, with BAII acting as agent bank."[^1] The [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] had made its approval conditional on CCAH raising additional capital from an institution not related to BCCI.[^3]
The two guarantors were [[Kamal Adham]] and [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]]. In a letter of April 23, 1991 to the French [[Commission Bancaire]], the Federal Reserve's general counsel, [[Virgil Mattingly|J. Virgil Mattingly]], reported that a subpoena for BAII's records of its lending to CCAH and its shareholders had been issued on January 31, 1991, and wrote: "We have reason to believe from our review of certain records of BCCI that this loan was guaranteed by two CCAH shareholders and that BCCI indemnified these individuals against any loss they might sustain by reason of their guarantee."[^4] The House minority staff reported in September 1991, citing the Federal Reserve's notice of charges, that the loan was "secured by a deposit from Adham. Adham concealed from the Federal Reserve the fact that BCCI was indirectly funding his deposit and thereby the BAII loan."[^3]
On about May 13, 1982, BCCI or [[ICIC|ICIC Overseas]] paid 2.5 million dollars to Credit and Commerce American Investment (CCAI), one of First American's holding companies, "to permit it to pay interest on a loan from BAII," followed by 2.3 million dollars on about July 13, 1982. The Federal Reserve found that these payments broke the commitment given by [[Clark Clifford]], [[Robert Altman]] and CCAH that no more than 50 million dollars of debt would be incurred for the acquisition.[^5]
### Independence Bank
In 1985 BCCI used BAII again, in the secret purchase of the [[Independence Bank of Encino]] in [[California]] through [[Ghaith R. Pharaon]]. According to the Senate report, BCCI "loaned $8.5 million to Pharaon and transferred the proceeds to Pharaon's account at Banque Arabe et Internationale d'Investissement, Paris (BAII), a bank which shared directors in common with BCCI, and which had also been used to shield BCCI's funding of the First American purchase four years earlier. BCCI instructed BAII to send a telegram to California banking authorities stating that Pharaon had deposits of that amount with BAII that were being held for the purchase of Independence." The rest of the price came from the [[First National Bank of Boston]], against a letter of credit from BAII, "which in turn received a counter-guarantee from BCCI holding BAII harmless against any claim that might arise."[^2]
### Clifford and Altman
In 1985 and 1986 Clifford and Altman sought loans to buy CCAH shares left unsubscribed in a rights offering. In testimony to the Senate subcommittee they stated: "The first institution we approached for financing was Banque Arabe et Internatinale d'Investissement ('BAII') in Paris, the consortium bank that acted as the lead lender in the syndicate that had lent $50 million in connection with the acquisition of FGB in 1982." Federal investigators later reviewed a BAII file entitled "1st American 1985" containing a "Memo re loan to Clifford & Altman 12/29/85," whose notes included "No syndication of the loan" and "No participation by BCCI in loan"; the House minority staff wrote that documents at BAII "appear to indicate that BCCI was acting as an agent for Clifford and Altman in soliciting loans to finance their CCAH stock purchases."[^3][^5]
According to the Senate report, BAII was prepared to make the loan only if BCCI simultaneously guaranteed it, "making BAII effectively acting as a pass through to cover BCCI's involvement, just as it had done in connection in lending money at the outset of the FGB purchase." Clifford and Altman insisted that the loans be non-recourse, and "BAII refused to provide the lending, even with a backup guarantee from BCCI, on a non-recourse basis." The report concluded: "Thus, even with protection from BCCI, and with a BCCI director on its board, BAII viewed the transaction as sufficiently unusual to pull out." BCCI itself then lent the two men 15 million dollars, on a 100 percent non-recourse basis for 18 months at the London interbank rate.[^5] The report does not name the BCCI director on BAII's board.
### Footnotes
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. *Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) Investigation, Part 1.* Hearing, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., September 11, 1991, Serial No. 102-69, "Offer to Purchase for Cash Any and All Outstanding Shares of the Common Stock of Financial General Bankshares, Inc., by FGB Holding Corp." (1982), section 10, "Source and Amount of Funds," pp. 631-632. https://archive.org/details/BCCIHearingsBeforeTheCommitteeOnBankingFinanceAndUrbanAffairs
[^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. 7, "BCCI in the United States: Later Acquisitions." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/07later.htm
[^3]: House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 102-69, Minority Staff Report, "BCCI and Its Activities in the United States," September 10, 1991, pp. 899-900, 917, 933. https://archive.org/details/BCCIHearingsBeforeTheCommitteeOnBankingFinanceAndUrbanAffairs
[^4]: House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 102-69, letter of J. Virgil Mattingly, Jr., General Counsel, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, to Jean-Louis Fort, Commission Bancaire, April 23, 1991, pp. 836-838. https://archive.org/details/BCCIHearingsBeforeTheCommitteeOnBankingFinanceAndUrbanAffairs
[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm

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@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "CAIP"
tags:
- Organization
- AISafety
- Lobbying
- EffectiveAltruism
summary: "Washington AI-safety advocacy nonprofit that registered its first lobbyist in December 2023, promoted a draft Responsible AI Act, and drew about a third of its donations from Jaan Tallinn's Lightspeed Grants."
start: 2023
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Jason Green-Lowe]]"
reverse: true
role: "executive director"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Lightspeed Grants]]"
reverse: true
role: "about a third of total donations, per Green-Lowe"
fn: 1
- type: represented
with: "[[Kate Forscey]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023-12
role: "lobbyist"
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Center for AI Policy (CAIP) is a nonprofit that lobbies in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] for legislation on catastrophic risks from advanced artificial intelligence. It registered its first lobbyist in December 2023, the same season in which the similarly named [[Center for AI Safety]], through its Action Fund, registered its own, and in that one month it spent 98,000 dollars lobbying Congress and the [[State Department]] on "issues relating to the support of mitigating catastrophic risks from advanced, general-purpose artificial intelligence."[^1]
### Lobbying
Its lobbying was led by [[Kate Forscey]], a former technology policy adviser to Representative [[Anna Eshoo]] of California. In February 2024 the organization was promoting a draft "Responsible AI Act," which, as *[[Politico]]* described it, "would hold AI developers liable for 'severe harms,' require permits to develop 'high-risk' systems and empower regulators to 'pause AI projects if they identify a clear emergency.'"[^1]
### Funding
The executive director, [[Jason Green-Lowe]], told *Politico* that about a third of the center's donations came from [[Lightspeed Grants]], which is backed by [[Jaan Tallinn]], the [[Skype]] co-founder who was an early investor in [[DeepMind]] and led a 2021 investment in [[Anthropic]] that included money from [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and the former Google chief executive [[Eric Schmidt]]. Green-Lowe called the center "fully independent of big AI labs" and said its policies "won't give those labs unfair advantages because the cost of compliance is tiny compared to the price of hardware and talent."[^1]
The same article quoted [[Suresh Venkatasubramanian]] of Brown University, who said of the new lobbying by the two centers: "We should discuss what the science is telling us about AI... But if they want to go lobbying, then that is a different path. It's about who has more money, and [who] wants to fund their agenda through infusions of cash from a rich doomsday cult."[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Bordelon, Brendan. "AI doomsayers funded by billionaires ramp up lobbying." *Politico,* February 23, 2024. http://web.archive.org/web/20240223123509id_/https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/23/ai-safety-washington-lobbying-00142783

24
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Center for AI Safety.md
View file

@ -19,6 +19,23 @@ relations:
reverse: true
role: "executive and research director"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[FTX]]"
reverse: true
end: 2022
role: "6.5 million dollars before its collapse"
fn: 10
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Nathan Calvin]]"
reverse: true
role: "senior policy counsel, CAIS Action Fund"
fn: 10
- type: represented
with: "[[Varun Krovi]]"
reverse: true
start: 2023
role: "lobbyist for the CAIS Action Fund"
fn: 10
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-23
---
@ -37,6 +54,12 @@ The Center for AI Safety Action Fund is a 501(c)(4), so contributions to it are
Hendrycks, the center's executive and research director, with [[Oliver Zhang]] as managing director,[^1] advises [[Elon Musk]]'s [[xAI]], which he joined in 2023 for a salary of one dollar a year, and [[Scale AI]], which he began advising in 2024 for twelve dollars a year. He told an audience at [[TechCrunch]] Disrupt in October 2025 that he had helped craft SB 1047 and that Musk was the only AI company head to support it: "No other A.I. companies officially supported that bill, and that's because he takes this much more seriously."[^7] In July 2024, as SB 1047 moved through the legislature, the AI security company [[Gray Swan AI]] announced that Hendrycks, one of its advisers, had "decided to divest his entire financial stake in Gray Swan" "to avoid even the appearance of a financial conflict," and would remain an unpaid adviser without equity.[^8] In March 2025 Hendrycks published "Superintelligence Strategy" with the former Google chief executive [[Eric Schmidt]] and Scale AI's founder [[Alexandr Wang]], proposing "Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM): a deterrence regime resembling nuclear mutual assured destruction (MAD) where any state's aggressive bid for unilateral AI dominance is met with preventive sabotage by rivals," through means "ranging from covert cyberattacks to potential kinetic strikes on datacenters."[^9]
### Lobbying and FTX
The center and the unaffiliated [[Center for AI Policy]] registered their first federal lobbyists in late 2023. The CAIS Action Fund spent 80,000 dollars on congressional and agency lobbying from October to December 2023 and engaged [[Varun Krovi]], a former chief of staff to Representative [[Brenda Lawrence]], to lead it. Its senior policy counsel, [[Nathan Calvin]], said that Open Philanthropy "has not made any contributions" to the Action Fund, whose lobbying he said was funded by a "mix of donors." *Politico* reported in February 2024 that Open Philanthropy had given the center "more than $10.5 million" since November 2022, a figure below the sum of the four grants listed on Open Philanthropy's grant pages, and that the center had received 6.5 million dollars from the cryptocurrency exchange [[FTX]] before its collapse in late 2022. The bankrupt FTX later "demanded information from CAIS regarding that donation," and Calvin declined to say whether the center would return the money. The center had also partnered with the [[United Kingdom]] on AI risks and was among the first members of the Commerce Department's AI Safety Institute Consortium, announced in February 2024.[^2][^10]
The *Politico* article quoted [[Suresh Venkatasubramanian]], a Brown University professor and co-author of a 2022 White House document on AI's near-term risks: "It's about who has more money, and [who] wants to fund their agenda through infusions of cash from a rich doomsday cult." [[Divyansh Kaushik]] of the [[Federation of American Scientists]] said such organizations were "trying to build more mature efforts to get in front of more members, make arguments that at least sound reasonable."[^10]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Center for AI Safety, "Statement on AI Risk," May 30, 2023, https://www.safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-risk ; "About Us," https://www.safe.ai/about
@ -48,3 +71,4 @@ Hendrycks, the center's executive and research director, with [[Oliver Zhang]] a
[^7]: "Meet the Researcher Elon Musk Pays $1 a Year to Safeguard A.I." *Observer,* October 28, 2025. https://observer.com/2025/10/dan-hendrycks-ai-safety-advisory-xai/
[^8]: Gray Swan AI, "Statement on SB-1047 and Founders," July 25, 2024. https://www.grayswan.ai/news/sb1047
[^9]: Hendrycks, Dan, Eric Schmidt, and Alexandr Wang. "Superintelligence Strategy: Expert Version." arXiv:2503.05628, March 7, 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.05628
[^10]: Bordelon, Brendan. "AI doomsayers funded by billionaires ramp up lobbying." *Politico,* February 23, 2024. http://web.archive.org/web/20240223123509id_/https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/23/ai-safety-washington-lobbying-00142783

24
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@ -44,6 +44,11 @@ relations:
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
role: "nearly all of its grant money"
fn: 6
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]]"
reverse: true
role: "administrative support and grant processing"
fn: 14
created: 2026-06-20
updated: 2026-09-23
---
@ -68,6 +73,18 @@ Open Philanthropy, renamed Coefficient Giving in November 2025, draws nearly all
The foundation's assets were 27 million dollars in the fiscal year ending June 2013, 1.02 billion in 2017, 3.34 billion in 2020, 5.86 billion in 2023 and 10.11 billion in 2025. Contributions received were 1.02 billion dollars in fiscal 2020, 1.91 billion in 2023, 801 million in 2024 and 1.40 billion in 2025, when it also reported 847 million dollars from sales of assets and paid 338 million dollars in charitable disbursements.[^2] In 2026 it held 1,720,916 Class A shares of Asana, the company Moskovitz controls; Asana's proxy statement said that Moskovitz and "his spouse serve as directors on the board of Good Ventures Foundation and may be deemed to have shared voting and dispositive power" over them. The same proxy disclosed that Asana bought 1.1 million dollars of AI services from [[Anthropic]], in which Moskovitz "has a minority ownership interest."[^9] In April 2026 the *[[Washington Examiner]]* reported that in 2025 Moskovitz had transferred his Anthropic stake, "which had reportedly grown to roughly $500 million, to his charity to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interests," without naming the entity.[^10]
### The Action Fund
The Open Philanthropy Action Fund, renamed Coefficient Giving Action Fund, EIN 81-2644663, is a 501(c)(4) that files in care of Apercen Partners at 314 Lytton Avenue, the foundation's own address. Tuna, Moskovitz and Makan have sat on its board on every return since 2017, with Van Loben Sels as treasurer, joined by Open Philanthropy's chief executives, Holden Karnofsky and Alexander Berger, and in 2017 and 2018 by Hassenfeld. It reported about 270.4 million dollars in contributions from 2016 to 2023, and liabilities greater than its assets at the end of each year from 2021 to 2023.[^11] On October 29, 2019, it gave 750,000 dollars to the non-contribution account of [[Real Justice PAC]], listing its address as 314 Lytton Avenue, Suite 200.[^12] Its lobbyists reported about 1.53 million dollars in income from it between 2021 and mid-2026.[^4]
### The Supporting Organization
A second tax-exempt entity named simply Good Ventures, EIN 45-2757586, files in care of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation at the community foundation's own headquarters, 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300, [[Mountain View, California|Mountain View]]. Its [[Internal Revenue Service]] record classifies it as a 509(a)(3) supporting organization, and its tax exemption was ruled on September 1, 2012, six months before the Good Ventures Foundation's own exemption in March 2013. It received 79.3 million dollars in contributions in fiscal 2012, 80.1 million in 2013, 70.5 million in 2014, 174.6 million in 2015, 38.3 million in 2016 and 6.1 million in 2017. In fiscal 2017 its total expenses were 188.9 million dollars against revenue of 26.7 million, and its net assets fell from 262.0 million dollars at the end of fiscal 2016 to 99.4 million a year later. A return for the fiscal year ending October 2018 is listed without extracted data, and no later return appears in the index.[^13]
A document prepared for a GiveWell board meeting of June 17, 2015, stated: "The Silicon Valley Community Foundation provides some administrative support to Good Ventures including some support on grants made via OP. This is not included in Good Ventures' support of OP and GiveWell." It recorded that Tuna, as president of Good Ventures, sat on Open Philanthropy's leadership team with Elie Hassenfeld, Alexander Berger and "Howie," and decided whether to approve grants, and that Good Ventures had filed for the Open Philanthropy Project trademark and owned the openphilanthropy.org address.[^14] Open Philanthropy's grantmaking process page states that "The Open Philanthropy Project, LLC (the organization that employs most Open Philanthropy staff) generally does not pay grants directly, but instead submits formal recommendations to one of our external funding partners, such as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation or the Good Ventures Foundation, which then conducts legal due diligence and a formal approval process to determine whether or not to fund the grant."[^15]
Good Ventures LLC, which Gunther described as a for-profit impact investment firm, does not appear as a filer in the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]]'s company index, and no filing in the commission's full-text index names it together with Moskovitz.[^16] *Forbes* reported in 2025 that most of Good Ventures' impact investments were in drug development and that its largest holdings included [[Impossible Foods]], its first impact investment, and the semiconductor and technology companies [[TSMC]], [[ASML]], [[Nvidia]] and [[Microsoft]].[^17]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
@ -80,3 +97,10 @@ The foundation's assets were 27 million dollars in the fiscal year ending June 2
[^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]: Asana, Inc. Schedule 14A definitive proxy statement, filed April 20, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477720/000162828026025998/asan-20260420.htm
[^10]: Schmad, Robert. "Documents show how a tech-connected nonprofit shaped Biden-era AI policy." *Washington Examiner,* April 17, 2026. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/4532389/
[^11]: 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
[^12]: 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
[^13]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Good Ventures," EIN 45-2757586, organization record and Form 990 data for fiscal years 2011 to 2017. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/452757586
[^14]: GiveWell, "Attachment C: The Open Philanthropy Project: Good Ventures' and GiveWell's roles and responsibilities," board meeting of June 17, 2015. https://files.givewell.org/files/ClearFund/Meeting_2015_06_17/Attachment_C_Open_Phil_roles_and_responsibilities.pdf
[^15]: Open Philanthropy, "Grantmaking Process," archived November 19, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20251119074907id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grantmaking-process/
[^16]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR company search for "Good Ventures" and full-text search for "Good Ventures LLC" with "Moskovitz," searched September 23, 2026. https://efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index?q=%22Good%20Ventures%20LLC%22%20Moskovitz
[^17]: 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/

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20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Harken Energy.md Normal file
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@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Oil
- Texas
- Bahrain
- GeorgeWBush
- HarkenEnergy
alias:
- Harken Energy Corporation
- Harken Energy Corp.
- Harken
summary: "Texas oil company, with George W. Bush as director and consultant, that won an exclusive Bahrain offshore concession in January 1990 while a Saudi investor held about 11 percent of its stock."
start: 1973
location: "Grand Prairie, Texas, USA"
relations:
- type: director_of
with: "[[George W. Bush]]"
reverse: true
end: 1993-10-26
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[George W. Bush]]"
reverse: true
role: "consultant"
start: 1987-04
end: 1993-10-26
fn: 1
- type: director_of
with: "[[Talat Othman]]"
reverse: true
start: 1987
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Aeneas Venture Corporation]]"
reverse: true
role: "15.27 percent (April 1994), Harvard endowment affiliate"
fn: 1
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Bahrain National Oil Company]]"
role: "production sharing agreement for most of Bahrain's offshore territory"
start: 1990-01
fn: 2
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Bass Enterprises Production Company]]"
role: "Bahrain joint venture"
start: 1990-07
end: 1993-04-08
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Alan Quasha]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman"
start: 1983
end: 1991-02
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Harken Energy Corporation, an oil and gas company, was incorporated in [[California]] in 1973 and reincorporated in [[Delaware]] in 1979; in 1994 its offices were at Grand Prairie, [[Texas]]. [[George W. Bush]] joined it in 1986 and served as a director and consultant until October 26, 1993. In January 1990 its subsidiary, Harken Bahrain Oil Company, obtained exclusive exploration rights over most of [[Bahrain]]'s offshore territory.[^1][^2][^3]
### Early History
According to *[[Time (magazine)|Time]]*, Harken "began life in the late 1970s as an unprofitable collection of Texas oil wells for investors seeking tax write-offs." In 1984 [[Alan Quasha]], a lawyer, bought control and became chairman, and traded Harken stock for distressed oil companies; the magazine counted among its investors the [[Harvard University|Harvard]] endowment, [[George Soros]] and the [[Rupert family]] of [[South Africa]]. Harken's proxy statement of 1994 gave Quasha's tenure as chairman as 1983 to February 1991, when he was succeeded by the chief executive, Mikel D. Faulkner. Quasha's law firm, Quasha Wessely & Schneider of New York, had collected more than one million dollars in fees from Harken since 1988, according to *Time*.[^1][^3]
"George Bush Jr.'s affiliation with Harken began in the oil-bust year of 1986," *Time* reported, "when he and a group of partners received more than $2 million worth of Harken stock in exchange for his floundering 180-well Texas oil operation, Spectrum 7 Energy Corp., which had lost $400,000 in the six months before the sale." A director told the magazine: "His properties were pretty well encumbered. The banks hadn't foreclosed, but that was in the wind." The *[[Houston Chronicle]]* traced the company's descent from Bush's first oil venture: "George W. Bush's company, Bush Exploration Co., general partner in the limited partnerships, went through several mergers, eventually evolving into Harken Energy Corp., a suburban Dallas-based company." The Houston businessman [[James R. Bath]] had held a 5 percent interest in those partnerships, Arbusto '79 Ltd. and Arbusto '80 Ltd., investing 50,000 dollars.[^3][^4]
Bush served as a consultant to Harken under an agreement dating from April 1987. *Time* put his fees at 50,000 to 120,000 dollars a year.[^1][^3]
### Saudi Shareholder
"The year after Bush came aboard," *Time* reported, "a reclusive Saudi named Abdullah Taha Bakhsh bought an 11% stake in Harken through a Netherlands Antilles shell company." Harken's proxy statement of April 1994 listed [[Abdullah Taha Bakhsh]] of [[Jeddah]] as the owner of 11.66 percent of its common stock, held of record by Traco International N.V., which he wholly owned, and Atherstone Corporation N.V., which he indirectly owned. The largest holder, at 15.27 percent, was [[Aeneas Venture Corporation]], an affiliate of the Harvard endowment; Michael R. Eisenson, president of its affiliate Aeneas Group and a vice president and director of Aeneas Venture, sat on Harken's board. [[Talat Othman]], a director since 1987, was president of Dearborn Financial, Inc., which the proxy described as "an affiliate of Traco and Atherstone, significant record stockholders of Harken." During 1993 Harken's audit committee consisted of Othman and Bush until Bush's resignation.[^1][^3]
### Bahrain
Bahrain's rulers awarded the concession, *Time* wrote, after officials "suddenly and mysteriously broke off promising talks with [[Amoco]]" in 1989. Michael Ameen, a former head of [[Mobil]]'s [[Middle East]] operations, told the magazine that a Bahraini minister had telephoned him in search of "a small American company," and that ten minutes later "an investment banking friend in Arkansas" called him and recommended Harken.[^3] Harken's 1994 proxy recorded that Michael M. Ameen Jr. had served since 1989 as a part-time consultant to Harken "with regard to Middle Eastern exploration projects," paid 20,000 dollars in 1993, and that on February 11, 1994 the board elected him to the seat left vacant by Bush's resignation.[^1]
In January 1990, according to Harken's annual report for 1993, Harken Bahrain Oil Company "entered into a production sharing agreement with the Bahrain National Oil Company ('BANOCO') which gave it the exclusive right to explore for, develop and produce oil and gas throughout most of Bahrain's Arabian Gulf offshore territories," for a term of thirty-five years. In July 1990 [[Bass Enterprises Production Company]] agreed to fund at least the first three exploratory wells, with the option of then earning a fifty percent interest in Harken's rights by funding further drilling. The first well, Jarim No. 2 on the Jarim Reef, was abandoned as dry in March 1992. The second, Muharraq No. 1, begun on December 28, 1992, was plugged and abandoned at 8,778 feet after Harken announced on February 10, 1993 that no shows of oil or gas had been found. On April 8, 1993 the Bass company was released from further drilling obligations on payment of about two million dollars and the well's remaining costs, and Harken let part of the acreage lapse.[^2]
*Time* reported in October 1991 that "in late June 1990, five months after the deal was sealed and about a month before Iraq invaded Kuwait, young Bush sold 66% of his Harken stake (or 212,140 shares) at the top of the market for nearly $850,000," and that he did not report the sale until March 1991. Bush said the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] had misplaced the report; an SEC spokesman, John Heine, told the magazine: "As far as I know, nobody ever found the 'lost' filing." Harken's chairman, Faulkner, said his Bahraini partners would not let him discuss the terms of the agreement "even with board members."[^3]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Harken Energy Corporation. Proxy statement (Schedule 14A), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission April 25, 1994. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000454.txt
[^2]: Harken Energy Corporation. Annual report on Form 10-K for 1993, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission March 29, 1994, "Bahrain Operations." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/313478/0000950134-94-000289.txt
[^3]: Behar, Richard. "Global Intrigue: The Wackiest Rig in Texas." *Time,* October 28, 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718865/global-intrigue-the-wackiest-rig-in-texas/
[^4]: Urban, Jerry. "Bush Said Friend's Arbusto Investment Was His Own, Not Saudi Money." *Houston Chronicle,* June 4, 1992. Reproduced at https://911timeline.s3.amazonaws.com/1990s/houstonchronicle060492.html

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- HongKong
- LippoGroup
- WorthenBank
- ChinaResources
alias:
- Hongkong Chinese Bank
- HKCB
- Hong Kong Chinese Bank, Ltd.
summary: "Hong Kong bank whose Stephens family stake the Riadys took in exchange for their Worthen Bank shares about 1987, later part-owned by China Resources and sold to CITIC Ka Wah Bank in 2001."
location: "Hong Kong"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Jackson Stephens]]"
reverse: true
role: "Stephens family interest, traded to the Riadys about 1987"
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Lippo Group]]"
reverse: true
role: "59 percent"
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[China Resources]]"
reverse: true
role: "15 percent"
start: 1992
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Hong Kong Chinese Bank was a bank in [[Hong Kong]] in which the family of [[Jackson Stephens]] of [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] held an interest until about 1987, when they exchanged it for the shares of [[Mochtar Riady]]'s family in [[Worthen Bank]]. The bank then became part of the Riadys' [[Lippo Group]], which sold it to [[CITIC Ka Wah Bank]] in 2001.[^1][^2]
### The Worthen Exchange
The Stephens and Riady families had formed [[Stephens Finance Ltd.]] in Hong Kong in 1978 and both bought into Worthen in 1983. [[James Riady]] and [[John Huang]] stayed in Little Rock until about 1987, when, according to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, "the Riadys sold their shares of Worthen Bank and focused their attention on a bank they previously had purchased in San Francisco." The committee explained the exchange in a footnote sourced to the depositions of [[Vernon Weaver|Arthur Vernon Weaver]] and [[C. Joseph Giroir]]: "The Riadys were bought out of Worthen by the Stephens family after the bank experienced a major defalcation by Bevil Bressler in 1986. After the defalcation, regulators investigated the quality of Worthen's assets and determined there were problems. Allegations were made against Worthen's loan practices and asset quality. Eventually, the Riadys traded their interest in the Worthen Bank for the Stephens' interest in the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, and also traded their interests in other joint ventures." The failed securities dealer was [[Bevill, Bresler and Schulman]].[^1]
### China Resources
"In late 1992," the House committee reported, "China Resources purchased 15 percent of the Lippo owned Hong Kong Chinese Bank." It described [[China Resources]] as "a Chinese Government owned company which is a joint venture partner with the Lippo Group and partner in the Lippo controlled Hong Kong Chinese Bank," and stated that China Resources "subsequently infused the failing LippoLand with tens of millions of dollars, effectively bailing the Riady family out of a precarious financial situation." In 1993 Huang and Mochtar Riady asked the Commerce Secretary, [[Ron Brown]], to meet [[Shen Jueren]], chairman of China Resources, and arranged a meeting between Shen and Vice President [[Al Gore]] during the same visit to the [[United States]].[^1]
Citing sources of 1995 and 1996, the committee reported that Lippo owned 59 percent of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, "a banking and finance firm with $2.3 billion in assets," and 70 percent of [[Hong Kong China Limited]], "a property investment and development firm with $1.2 billion in assets."[^1]
### Sale to CITIC Ka Wah
On October 31, 2001, CITIC Ka Wah Bank agreed to buy the Hongkong Chinese Bank for about 4.2 billion Hong Kong dollars in cash, about 1.4 times its book value. The bank then had 25 branches and total assets of about 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, and was the principal operating subsidiary of the listed HKCB Bank Holdings, whose majority shareholder, Lippo CRE (Financial Services), held 58.78 percent and had indicated that it would vote for the sale. Lippo CRE was a joint venture between Lippo China Resources, controlled by the Riady family's Lippo Group, and China Resources Enterprise, which the *[[South China Morning Post]]* described as "the locally listed arm of the mainland foreign trade ministry's China Resources Holdings"; China Resources Enterprise also held 5.84 percent of HKCB Bank Holdings directly. CITIC Ka Wah was 55.24 percent controlled by [[CITIC Group|CITIC]], "the mainland's largest investment company under the control of the State Council." The sale excluded HKCB Bank Holdings' brokerage and fund-management businesses, and required the approval of the [[Hong Kong Monetary Authority]].[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2, footnotes 6, 14 and 115-117. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm
[^2]: "Citic Ka Wah snares HKCB." *South China Morning Post,* November 1, 2001. https://www.scmp.com/article/361790/citic-ka-wah-snares-hkcb

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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- "ICONIQ Capital, LLC"
- "Iconiq"
- "Iconiq Capital"
tags:
- Organization
- FamilyOffice
- VentureCapital
- SiliconValley
- MarkZuckerberg
- DustinMoskovitz
summary: "Investment adviser run by Divesh Makan since 2011, built on managing Mark Zuckerberg's money, which advises billionaire families and runs private funds, with about 117.5 billion dollars under management in 2025."
start: 2011
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[Michael Anders]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Will Griffith]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Matthew Jacobson]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal"
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Blue Owl Capital]]"
reverse: true
role: "passive minority equity stake, through an affiliate"
fn: 1
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Iron Point Partners]]"
role: "joint venture in IPI Partners"
fn: 1
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Ajax Health Management Company]]"
reverse: true
role: "expected sub-advisor to an ICONIQ private fund"
start: 2026
fn: 1
- type: represented
with: "[[Mark Zuckerberg]]"
role: "investment adviser"
fn: 2
- type: represented
with: "[[Dustin Moskovitz]]"
role: "investment adviser"
fn: 2
- type: represented
with: "[[Sheryl Sandberg]]"
role: "investment adviser"
fn: 2
- type: represented
with: "[[Jack Dorsey]]"
role: "investment adviser"
fn: 2
- type: represented
with: "[[Reid Hoffman]]"
role: "investment adviser"
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[Henry Kravis]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2014
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[David Bonderman]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2014
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[Chase Coleman]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2014
fn: 2
- type: member_of
with: "[[Aditya Mittal]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2014
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Sprinklr]]"
role: "led 40-million-dollar Series D round"
start: 2014-05
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Pluralsight]]"
role: "participant in 135-million-dollar Series B round"
start: 2014
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
ICONIQ Capital, LLC, is a [[Delaware]] limited liability company registered with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] as an investment adviser, CRD number 159198 and SEC file number 801-72878. Its registration took effect on December 1, 2011. Its brochure of March 26, 2026, states that it "has been in business as an investment adviser since 2011 and our partners include [[Divesh Makan]], [[Michael Anders]], [[Will Griffith]] and [[Matthew Jacobson]] (our 'Principals')."[^1]
### The Zuckerberg Client Base
In December 2014 *[[Forbes]]* wrote that Makan had "turned his otherwise run-of-the-mill registered investment advisory into an exclusive members-only [[Silicon Valley]] billionaires club that operates as a cross between a family office and a venture capital fund. His most famous client and the key to his success is billionaire Facebook founder [[Mark Zuckerberg]], whom Makan met in 2004 when he was a broker at [[Goldman Sachs]]." The magazine named among the firm's other clients "[[Facebook]]'s [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Sheryl Sandberg]], [[Twitter]]'s [[Jack Dorsey]] and [[LinkedIn]]'s [[Reid Hoffman]]," and wrote that the real-estate billionaires [[Sam Zell]] and [[Li Ka-shing]] had gained access through it to startups that "Makan & Co. advertise as being 'approved by Zuckerberg.'" The firm then had "full discretion over $1.4 billion in client funds" and advised "on another $7.6 billion."[^2]
*Forbes* described Makan's board of directors in 2014 as "another power list, with nontech titans like [[Henry Kravis]] and [[David Bonderman]], [[Chase Coleman]] and steel tycoon [[Lakshmi Mittal]]'s son Aditya" ([[Aditya Mittal]]). "The centerpiece of this action is Iconiq's $500 million Strategic Partners fund, Makan's flagship among 39 private investment vehicles, which total about $1 billion. The firm claims only 100 family office clients, but regulatory forms report some 300 investors, who put pre-IPO money into such companies as [[Alibaba]] and India's e-commerce giant [[Flipkart]]." ICONIQ had led a 40-million-dollar Series D round for [[Sprinklr]] in May 2014, whose founder [[Ragy Thomas]] said: "When someone like Iconiq wants to invest, you can't say no. They can probably connect to anyone in the world." It also took part in a 135-million-dollar Series B round for [[Pluralsight]], whose cofounder [[Aaron Skonnard]] said: "They don't want operational involvement. They just want to connect and network and give more access."[^2]
Makan is listed as an unpaid director of the [[Good Ventures|Good Ventures Foundation]] of Moskovitz and [[Cari Tuna]], alongside the couple, on the foundation's returns filed from 2023 to 2026; the foundation, which funds [[Open Philanthropy]], reported total assets of 10.1 billion dollars on its return filed in May 2026.[^3]
### Scale and Fees
As of December 31, 2025, ICONIQ reported regulatory assets under management of "approximately $85.8 billion, all on a discretionary basis and approximately $31.7 billion on a non-discretionary basis," together about 117.5 billion dollars. Its managed-account clients are "family offices; individuals and high net worth individuals; trusts, estates or charitable organizations; corporations, limited liability companies and/or other business types; and private pooled investment vehicles," and it "generally work[s] with Managed Account Clients with net worths of $25,000,000 or more." Managed-account fees "can range up to 1.5%" of assets a year; its private funds, open to accredited investors from a minimum of 10,000 dollars, generally charge a management fee of 2 percent a year and a performance allocation of "as much as 20% of the net profits" and "in some cases up to 30%." The brochure states that the firm uses "tools powered by artificial intelligence" in its analysis and that clients may trade in "cryptocurrency and other digital asset accounts."[^1]
### Ownership and Affiliates
"An affiliate of [[Blue Owl Capital]] Inc. owns a passive minority equity stake in ICONIQ Capital," the 2026 brochure states. "In addition, in late 2024, Blue Owl effectively acquired the assets of [[IPI Partners]], LLC, a digital infrastructure fund manager that was previously a joint venture of ICONIQ Capital and [[Iron Point Partners]], and many former IPI Partners personnel are now employed by Blue Owl Digital Infrastructure." The same document discloses that ICONIQ expects to engage [[Ajax Health Management Company]], LLC, as a sub-advisor to one of its private funds, that Ajax "will be entitled to a portion of the carried interest and management fees," and that "certain affiliates of ICONIQ hold an economic interest in Ajax," creating "a financial incentive to appoint and retain Ajax." It reports that "ICONIQ Capital has no disclosable disciplinary information."[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: ICONIQ Capital, LLC. Form ADV Part 2A, Firm Brochure, March 26, 2026, CRD 159198, SEC file 801-72878, via the SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure system. https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=1027115 ; firm record https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/159198
[^2]: Solomon, Brian. "The Spider Of Silicon Valley: Inside 'Zuck & Friends' Secret Billionaire Fund." *Forbes,* December 1, 2014 (print issue December 15, 2014), archived December 1, 2014. http://web.archive.org/web/20141201154053/http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/12/01/the-spider-of-silicon-valley-inside-zuck-friends-secret-billionaire-fund/
[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Good Ventures Foundation," EIN 46-1008520, Form 990-PF data, 990-PF filed May 15, 2026, and earlier returns. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461008520

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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "IFP"
tags:
- Organization
- ThinkTank
- OpenPhilanthropy
- EffectiveAltruism
- ProgressStudies
- Metascience
- Immigration
- ArtificialIntelligence
summary: "Washington think tank founded in 2021 by Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney with Open Philanthropy money, working on metascience, high-skilled immigration, biotechnology, infrastructure and emerging technology policy."
location: "Washington, D.C."
start: 2021
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Alec Stapp]]"
reverse: true
start: 2021
fn: 2
- type: founded
with: "[[Caleb Watney]]"
reverse: true
start: 2021
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
reverse: true
start: 2021-10
role: "1.6 million dollars for policy research (October 2021, later listed as 2.215 million) and 9 million dollars in general support (March 2023)"
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Institute for Progress (IFP) was announced on January 20, 2022 by [[Alec Stapp]] and [[Caleb Watney]] as "a new think tank in [[Washington, D.C.]]," with the mission "to accelerate scientific, technological, and industrial progress while safeguarding humanity's future." Their founding essay stated: "There's a framework we like to borrow from the effective altruism community that says, to do the most good in the world, prioritize issues that are important, neglected, and tractable." It named three initial areas: metascience, immigration and biosecurity.[^1] Watney's IFP biography dates the founding to 2021.[^2] The organization's first federal tax return, for calendar 2021, reported 1.9 million dollars in contributions; the [[Internal Revenue Service]] recognized its tax exemption in May 2022.[^3] Its office is at 1255 Union Street NE in Washington.[^4]
By 2026 IFP described five "policy verticals": metascience, high-skilled immigration, biotechnology, infrastructure and emerging technology. It stated that it provides "technical assistance to federal agencies" and "educational briefings on Capitol Hill," and that it is "laser-focused on counterfactual policy impact."[^4] A search of the Senate [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] database returned no filings for the organization; all eleven results for the client name "Institute for Progress" concern unrelated Turkish and Syrian clients.[^5]
### Funding
In October 2021 [[Open Philanthropy]], later rebranded as Coefficient Giving,[^6] granted 1.6 million dollars over a year and a half to "the Institute for Progress, a new think tank, to conduct research and advocacy on policies relevant to a number of our grantmaking areas, including immigration policy and scientific research"; the grant investigator was [[Jacob Trefethen]], and the grant page noted that "Institute for Progress staff also reviewed this page prior to publication."[^7] A later Open Philanthropy page, archived in August 2023, listed the same grant at 2,215,000 dollars. In March 2023 Open Philanthropy recommended "two grants totaling $9,000,000 over three years" for general support, within its innovation policy focus area.[^8]
IFP lists its funders as "foundations like the [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]], [[Arnold Ventures]], [[Astera Foundation]], Coefficient Giving, [[Heising-Simons Foundation]], and the [[Smith Richardson Foundation]]." It states that it does not accept donations from corporations or foreign governments and that "the majority of our support is unrestricted."[^4]
IFP's Form 990 returns report the following:[^3]
| Fiscal year | Revenue | Expenses | Net assets | Pay to each co-founder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,900,000 | 159,934 | 1,740,066 | 54,231 |
| 2022 | 970,114 | 1,201,769 | 1,508,411 | 163,125 |
| 2023 | 8,198,072 | 3,079,238 | 6,482,015 | 202,500 |
| 2024 | 1,075,917 | 3,597,698 | 3,658,868 | 246,008 (Stapp); 240,362 (Watney) |
In 2024 the highest-paid person was Amy Nice, "Distinguished Immigration Counsel," at 250,000 dollars; other paid staff that year included Jeremy Neufeld, Tim Fist, director of emerging technology policy, Santiago Ruiz and [[Brian Potter]].[^3]
### People
The returns list Dan Correa, Zachary Graves and Tamara Winter as unpaid directors from the first year.[^3] In 2026 IFP's external board comprised Correa of the [[Federation of American Scientists]], Graves of the [[Foundation for American Innovation]], Winter of [[Stripe Press]], and Watney, by then at Coefficient Giving.[^4] Watney served as co-chief executive until 2026, when Coefficient Giving hired him as its first managing director of public policy, overseeing its U.S. AI policy grantmaking and its Abundance and Growth Fund; Coefficient wrote that it "was an early supporter of IFP." The fund's program director, [[Matt Clancy]], was a former IFP colleague of Watney's,[^9] and in 2026 IFP listed Clancy, with the affiliation "Coefficient Giving," among its non-resident senior fellows, together with Santi Ruiz of [[Anthropic]], [[Miles Brundage]] and the economist [[Pierre Azoulay]]. Its staff included [[Heidi Williams]] as distinguished metascience fellow and [[Saif Khan]] as distinguished technology fellow.[^4]
In September 2026 *[[Effort News|Effort]]*, a publication founded by [[Brian Chau]], stated that "EA fellowships have placed over 50 staffers in Congress and the administrative branch," citing as its sources "Horizon, IFP and FAI biographies and government records."[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Stapp, Alec, and Caleb Watney. "Progress Is a Policy Choice." Institute for Progress, January 20, 2022. https://ifp.org/progress-is-a-policy-choice/
[^2]: Institute for Progress, "Caleb Watney," author biography. https://ifp.org/author/caleb-watney/
[^3]: 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
[^4]: Institute for Progress, "About." https://ifp.org/about/
[^5]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, search for client name "Institute for Progress." https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Institute+for+Progress
[^6]: Effort. "Effective Altruism is Buying Political Staff." September 19, 2026. https://www.effort.news/aisi
[^7]: Open Philanthropy, "Institute for Progress, Policy Research," grant of October 2021, archived July 1, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220701180156/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/institute-for-progress-policy-research/
[^8]: Open Philanthropy, "Institute for Progress, General Support (2023)," grant of March 2023, archived August 26, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20230826080214/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/institute-for-progress-general-support-2023/
[^9]: 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/

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- BCCI
- Kuwait
- ParallelBank
- SandstormReport
alias:
- KIFCO
- Kifco
- Kuwaiti Investment Finance Company
summary: "Kuwaiti finance company in which BCCI ostensibly held 49 percent but which it controlled through its nominee Faisal al-Fulaij, used as a parallel bank to move and disguise BCCI funds."
location: "Kuwait"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
reverse: true
role: "ostensibly 49 percent; actual control through nominee Faisal al-Fulaij"
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij]]"
role: "loan for his Financial General share purchases"
start: 1977-12
end: 1978-02
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Kuwait International Finance Company (KIFCO) was a [[Kuwait|Kuwaiti]] finance company that the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) used as one of its "parallel banks." According to the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]], BCCI "purportedly had a 49 percent interest in, but actually owned and controlled" it "through its nominee, [[Faisal Saud al-Fulaij|Faisal al-Fulaij]]."[^1][^2]
### Parallel Bank
The Senate report described BCCI's corporate structure as "intentionally further complicated by the establishment of a series of additional entities, used as 'parallel banks' by BCCI as needed for financial manipulations. These parallel entities included the Kuwait International Finance Company (KIFCO), in which BCCI ostensibly had only a minority interest; a Swiss bank, Bank de Commerce et Placements SA (BCP), in which BCCI also ostensibly had only a minority interest; the [[National Bank of Oman]], again with BCCI formally holding only a minority interest; a 100% owned finance subsidiary, Credit & Finance Corporation Ltd,; and the series of entities" known as [[ICIC]].[^1] The Swiss bank was the [[Banque de Commerce et de Placements]] in [[Geneva]].[^3]
### Financial General
From December 1977 through February 1978 BCCI bought almost 20 percent of the voting shares of [[Financial General Bankshares]], later [[First American Bank|First American]], in the names of four Middle Eastern clients. Of one of them the chronology entered in the record of the [[House Banking Committee]]'s hearing of September 11, 1991 stated: "Fulaij borrowed the funds required to purchase his shares from the Kuwait International Finance Company ('KIFCO'), an affiliate of BCCI."[^2] At the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]]'s hearing of April 23, 1981 on the acquisition, Fulaij described his career as chairman of [[Kuwait Airways]] from 1964 to 1977 and said: "I have been involved in KIFCO and have had business interests in a real estate firm and a travel agency." When the Federal Reserve's counsel, Robert Mannion, asked what KIFCO was, Fulaij replied: "I am chairman of this company."[^4]
### Pakistan
According to the former BCCI executive [[Nazir Chinoy]], in 1979, when the [[World Bank]] had capped commercial lending in [[Pakistan]] and tied increases to the country's foreign-exchange reserves, [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] or [[Swaleh Naqvi]] devised a means of raising BCCI's limit. Chinoy said: "$50 million would be placed with BCCI Pakistan through BCCI's Kuwaiti affiliate, KIFCO. BCCI transferred money to KIFCO. I have a feeling that KIFCO got the money from Caymans. In any case, Kifco placed the money with BCCI Karachi." The Senate report concluded that BCCI had used an affiliate "officially separate from BCCI, but secretly controlled by it and owned by it, to launder BCCI funds from one BCCI location to BCCI Pakistan."[^5]
### Sandstorm
When [[Price Waterhouse]] took over the consolidated audit of BCCI in 1987 it was still "not in the position to review BCCI's overall picture due to the exclusion from its audit work of a number of BCCI affiliates, some secretly owned, including ICIC, KIFCO, and BCP."[^1] The Price Waterhouse report to the [[Bank of England]] code-named [[Sandstorm Report|Sandstorm]], released to Congress only in a heavily censored form, listed among BCCI's frauds "routing funds through [ICIC], LOANS, KIFCO, SDCC and other affiliates and third parties to make adjustments prior to accounting reference dates and audit confirmation dates, which were often reversed at a later date," and stated that the routing of funds had "been carried out on a very significant scale, involving a number of related companies, including the [ICIC Holdings Group], LOANS, NBO, and KIFCO, and third party banks such that it is now difficult for anyone to ascertain the true nature of external exposures recorded in the names of certain major customers."[^3]
Price Waterhouse found that placements recorded by BCCI with KIFCO did not match KIFCO's own financial statements for the same transactions, and that "the principal mechanism for repaying Kifco's loans from BCCI was a mysterious Kuwaiti entity called 'the IZ company for Exchange.'" The auditors wrote that "we now have suspicions as to the propriety of the transactions." Their request for access to KIFCO's records had been denied.[^6]
### 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. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^2]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. *Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) Investigation, Part 1.* Hearing, 102nd Cong., 1st sess., September 11, 1991, Serial No. 102-69, "Full Chronology of BCCI and First American Bankshares, Inc.," p. 666; see also Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry." https://archive.org/details/BCCIHearingsBeforeTheCommitteeOnBankingFinanceAndUrbanAffairs ; https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
[^4]: House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, Serial No. 102-69, transcript of the Federal Reserve Board hearing on the application of Credit and Commerce American Holdings, April 23, 1981, pp. 404-406, 450-451. https://archive.org/details/BCCIHearingsBeforeTheCommitteeOnBankingFinanceAndUrbanAffairs
[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 5, "BCCI's Relationship with Foreign Governments, Central Banks, and International Organizations." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm
[^6]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 10, "BCCI and Its Accountants." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/10accounta.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- "Leading the Future PAC"
tags:
- Organization
- SuperPAC
- AIPolicy
- AndreessenHorowitz
- OpenAI
- EffectiveAccelerationism
summary: "Super PAC registered in Henderson, Nevada, in 2025, funded with 75.1 million dollars from Andreessen Horowitz, Greg and Anna Brockman and Perplexity, which passes its money to affiliated committees spending in 2026 congressional races."
start: 2025-08-15
location: "Henderson, Nevada"
relations:
- type: funded
with: "[[Andreessen Horowitz]]"
reverse: true
role: "50 million dollars through A16Z Capital Management LLC, attributed equally to Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz"
start: 2025-08
end: 2026-02
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Greg Brockman]]"
reverse: true
role: "12.5 million dollars"
start: 2025-09
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Anna Brockman]]"
reverse: true
role: "12.5 million dollars"
start: 2025-09
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Perplexity]]"
reverse: true
role: "100,000 dollars, as Perplex AI Inc."
start: 2025-08
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Think Big (PAC)]]"
role: "20 million dollars in four transfers"
start: 2025-12
end: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[American Mission (PAC)]]"
role: "20 million dollars in four transfers"
start: 2025-12
end: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[American Mission Florida]]"
role: "3 million dollars"
start: 2026-03
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Build American AI]]"
role: "500,000 dollars"
start: 2025-10
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Zac Moffatt]]"
reverse: true
role: "leader"
fn: 3
- type: head_of
with: "[[Josh Vlasto]]"
reverse: true
role: "leader"
fn: 3
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Prusik Partners]]"
reverse: true
role: "strategy, management and communications consulting"
fn: 2
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Crosby Ottenhoff Group]]"
reverse: true
role: "compliance consulting"
fn: 2
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Wiley Rein]]"
reverse: true
role: "legal services"
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Leading the Future is a super PAC, a political committee that may make only independent expenditures, registered with the [[Federal Election Commission]] on August 15, 2025, under identifier C00916114. Its address is 675 South Green Valley Parkway, #1333, [[Henderson, Nevada]], and its treasurer of record is [[Britney Gonzalez]] of [[Mountain Brook, Alabama]]. The email contact on its filings uses the domain of the [[Crosby Ottenhoff Group]], which the committee also pays as a compliance consultant.[^1][^2] Its leaders, [[Zac Moffatt]] and [[Josh Vlasto]], described the [[RAISE Act]] of the New York Assembly member [[Alex Bores]] in November 2025 as "ideological and politically motivated legislation" and said that "bills like the RAISE Act threaten American competitiveness, limit economic growth."[^3]
### Donors
Through its report of July 15, 2026, Leading the Future had received 75,100,000 dollars in contributions and 75,788,224.10 dollars in total receipts, had disbursed 44,755,780.65 dollars and held 31,032,443.45 dollars in cash.[^4] The contributions came from four sources:
- A16Z Capital Management LLC of [[Menlo Park, California]], the management company of [[Andreessen Horowitz]], gave 25,000,000 dollars on August 22, 2025, and another 25,000,000 dollars on February 11, 2026. Each check was attributed on the filing, as a partnership contribution, half to [[Ben Horowitz]] of [[Las Vegas]] and half to [[Marc Andreessen]] of [[Los Altos, California]], at 12,500,000 dollars each.
- [[Greg Brockman]], president and co-founder of [[OpenAI]], gave 12,500,000 dollars on September 12, 2025.
- [[Anna Brockman]] gave 12,500,000 dollars on the same day.
- Perplex AI Inc., the company behind [[Perplexity]], gave 100,000 dollars on August 22, 2025.[^1]
The remaining itemized receipts are interest and similar income on the committee's account at [[Chain Bridge Bank]].[^1]
### Transfers
Almost all of the committee's spending consists of transfers to other committees. On each of four dates, December 15, 2025, and February 24, May 19 and June 8, 2026, it gave 5,000,000 dollars to a committee called [[Think Big (PAC)|Think Big]] and 5,000,000 dollars to one called [[American Mission (PAC)|American Mission]], 40,000,000 dollars in all. It also gave 3,000,000 dollars to [[American Mission Florida]] on March 4, 2026, and 500,000 dollars to [[Build American AI]] on October 9, 2025. These transfers came to 43.5 million of its 44.76 million dollars in disbursements. The rest went mostly to [[Prusik Partners]] for strategy, management and communications consulting, to the law firm [[Wiley Rein]], to [[Schoen Survey Research]] for polling (89,000 dollars in October 2025) and to Crosby Ottenhoff.[^2]
### Think Big
Think Big (FEC identifier C00923417) reported 23,021,600.71 dollars in receipts, 20,760,549.23 dollars in disbursements and 17,224,117.88 dollars in independent expenditures.[^5] Its largest single target was Bores, then a candidate in the Democratic primary for [[New York]]'s 12th congressional district;[^6] the FEC's aggregation of its independent expenditures by candidate shows 8,145,697.68 dollars spent opposing him, in 55 transactions, all through the vendor [[Lantern Production Consultants]].[^5] In February 2026 *[[TechCrunch]]* reported that Leading the Future had "already poured $1.1 million into ads attacking Bores" when the [[Anthropic]]-funded [[Public First Action]] began spending in his support.[^6] Think Big also reported expenditures supporting other candidates, among them [[Jesse Jackson Jr.]] and [[Melissa Bean]] in [[Illinois]], [[Ben McAdams]] in [[Utah]], [[Ritchie Torres]], [[Joseph Morelle]] and [[Yvette Clarke]] in New York, [[Jimmy Panetta]] in [[California]], [[Rob Menendez|Robert Menendez]] in [[New Jersey]], [[Greg Stanton]] in [[Arizona]] and [[Valerie Hoyle]] in [[Oregon]].[^5]
The counter-campaign for Bores was run by the Jobs and Democracy PAC, funded through the Public First super PAC, which the FEC's aggregation shows spent 15,026,937.99 dollars supporting him.[^7]
### American Mission
American Mission (FEC identifier C00916692) reported 23,943,009.62 dollars in receipts, 13,412,103.80 dollars in disbursements and 10,853,994.82 dollars in independent expenditures. Its expenditures, placed through [[Summit Ridge Media Group]], supported candidates in many states, among them [[Andy Barr]] in [[Kentucky]], [[Julia Letlow]] in [[Louisiana]], [[Clay Fuller]] and [[James Kingston]] in [[Georgia]], [[Chris Gober]] and [[Jessica Hart Steinmann]] in [[Texas]], [[Aaron Flint]] in [[Montana]], [[Laurie Buckhout]] in [[North Carolina]] and [[Kevin Hern]] in [[Oklahoma]].[^5] Hern also received independent expenditures in his support from the Defending Our Values PAC of the Public First Action group.[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00916114, "Leading the Future," statement of organization and itemized receipts (Schedule A), retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00916114
[^2]: Federal Election Commission, itemized disbursements (Schedule B) for committee C00916114, 53 records, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?committee_id=C00916114
[^3]: Bellan, Rebecca. "a16z-backed super PAC is targeting Alex Bores, sponsor of New York's AI safety bill; he says bring it on." *TechCrunch,* November 17, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/17/a16z-backed-super-pac-is-targeting-alex-bores-sponsor-of-new-yorks-ai-safety-bill-he-says-bring-it-on/
[^4]: Federal Election Commission, financial totals for committee C00916114, 2025 to 2026 cycle, through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/?tab=summary
[^5]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00923417 ("Think Big") and C00916692 ("American Mission"), financial totals and independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00923417/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916692/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417
[^6]: Bellan, Rebecca. "Anthropic-funded group backs candidate attacked by rival AI super PAC." *TechCrunch,* February 20, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/anthropic-funded-group-backs-candidate-attacked-by-rival-ai-super-pac/
[^7]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00928374 ("Jobs and Democracy PAC") and C00928390 ("Defending Our Values PAC"), independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928374 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928390

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- SavingsAndLoan
- KeatingFive
- Fraud
alias:
- Lincoln Savings & Loan
- Lincoln Savings
- Lincoln Savings and Loan Association
summary: "Irvine, California savings and loan bought in 1984 by Charles Keating's American Continental Corporation and seized in April 1989; its failure cost taxpayers more than three billion dollars."
end: 1989
location: "Irvine, California, USA"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[American Continental Corporation]]"
reverse: true
start: 1984
end: 1989
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]]"
reverse: true
role: "San Francisco office examination"
start: 1986-03
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Lincoln Savings and Loan Association was a savings institution based in [[Irvine, California]]. [[American Continental Corporation]], the [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] homebuilder headed by [[Charles Keating]], bought it in 1984 for 51 million dollars, and federal regulators took it over in April 1989.[^1][^2]
### Growth
Rather than write mortgages, Lincoln under Keating grew tenfold by soliciting large deposits from Wall Street brokerages in exchange for fees, and invested them in high-yield junk bonds and in real estate development by American Continental, including The Phoenician resort in [[Scottsdale]].[^1] Its reported growth differs by source: its assets quadrupled in three years to 3.9 billion dollars according to United Press International, and rose from 1.1 billion to 5.5 billion dollars in four years according to NBC News.[^2][^3] [[Alan Greenspan]], later chairman of the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]], wrote a report stating that Lincoln was sound and had "seasoned and expert" managers.[^2] [[L. William Seidman]], who led the government's cleanup of the industry, later wrote that Lincoln "simply exchanged interest-rate risks for much greater asset quality risks," and called The Phoenician "a monument to Keating's ego."[^1]
### Regulators and the Keating Five
The [[San Francisco]] office of the [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] opened an investigation of Lincoln's growth in March 1986. Senators [[Alan Cranston]], [[Dennis DeConcini]], [[John Glenn]], [[Donald W. Riegle Jr.|Donald Riegle]] and [[John McCain]], who had received a combined 1.3 million dollars in donations and gifts from Keating, his family and his companies, met officials of the bank board on Lincoln's behalf. In May 1987 the San Francisco regulators recommended seizing Lincoln for unsound lending, but [[M. Danny Wall]], successor to the board's chairman [[Edwin Gray]], said there was insufficient proof to justify a seizure. Lincoln was taken over in April 1989, after Keating placed American Continental in bankruptcy, and the [[Resolution Trust Corporation]] later sold a majority interest in The Phoenician among Lincoln's assets.[^1]
### Bonds and Cost
According to NBC News, Keating "allegedly fleeced Lincoln customers by selling them $200 million of unsecured 'junk' bonds," which became useless when his company went bankrupt; he was convicted in California of misleading investors into buying bonds that were not federally insured.[^1][^3] The [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]] put the cost of Lincoln's failure to taxpayers at 3.14 billion dollars; NBC News, citing *[[The New York Times]]*, gave 3.4 billion.[^1][^3]
### BCCI
The Senate report on the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) listed among matters requiring further investigation "The financial dealings of BCCI directors with Charles Keating and several Keating affiliates and front-companies," naming the BCCI director [[Alfred Hartman]], [[David L. Paul]] and [[CenTrust Savings Bank]], [[Larry Romrell]] of [[Capcom]], the [[Gokal brothers]] and possibly [[Ghaith R. Pharaon]], and stated that "The ties between BCCI and Keating's financial empire require further investigation." It grouped these ties with BCCI's involvement in CenTrust and in Caprock Savings and Loan of Texas under "BCCI's collusion in Savings & Loan fraud in the U.S."[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Charles Keating, Face of Savings and Loan Bust, Dies at 90." *American Banker,* April 2, 2014. https://www.americanbanker.com/news/charles-keating-face-of-savings-and-loan-bust-dies-at-90
[^2]: Burns, Frances. "Charles Keating Jr., who became face of savings and loan scandal, dies at 90." United Press International, April 2, 2014. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2014/04/02/Charles-Keating-Jr-who-became-face-of-savings-and-loan-scandal-dies-at-90/5631396444559/
[^3]: Arkin, Daniel. "Charles Keating, Center of Savings and Loan Scandal, Dies at 90." NBC News, April 2, 2014. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charles-keating-center-savings-loan-scandal-dies-90-n69386
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, Appendices, "Matters for Further Investigation," items 8 and 12. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/24appendic.htm

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@ -11,10 +11,15 @@ tags:
- BCCI
alias:
- Lippo
summary: "Indonesian banking and property conglomerate of the Riady family, partner of the Stephens family of Arkansas from 1978, employer of John Huang and Webster Hubbell, whose California bank pleaded guilty to 86 campaign finance counts in 2001."
summary: "Indonesian banking and property conglomerate of the Riady family, partner of the Arkansas Stephens family from 1978 and employer of John Huang, whose California bank pleaded guilty to campaign finance counts in 2001."
location: "Jakarta, Indonesia"
created: 2026-09-21
updated: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Hong Kong China Limited]]"
role: "70 percent"
fn: 4
---
The Lippo Group is the banking, insurance, and property conglomerate of [[Mochtar Riady]] of [[Indonesia]] and his son [[James Riady]]. A Senate committee dated its business relationship with [[Stephens Inc.]] of [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] to 1977, and a House committee to a meeting between Mochtar Riady, [[Jackson Stephens]], and [[Witt Stephens]] in 1976.[^1]
@ -31,8 +36,17 @@ The two families formed [[Stephens Finance Ltd.]] in [[Hong Kong]] in 1978 and b
The companies [[Hip Hing Holdings]], [[San Jose Holdings]], and [[Toy Center Holdings]] were used in 1992 and 1993 to pass money from Jakarta to the [[Democratic National Committee]]. Huang pleaded guilty on August 12, 1999. On January 11, 2001, James Riady agreed to plead guilty to a felony and pay 8.61 million dollars, and LippoBank to 86 misdemeanor counts for contributions made from 1988 to 1994. The charge listed transfers from foreign Lippo companies to Huang's account in Hong Kong in 1990 and 1991, to the group's American subsidiaries from August 1992 to September 1993, and in cash to a Lippo executive in Hong Kong until May 1994. LippoBank had been sold to [[First Banks America]] about March 1, 2000.[^1][^3]
### Banks
In late 1992, according to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, [[China Resources]], "a Chinese Government owned company which is a joint venture partner with the Lippo Group," bought 15 percent of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, and it later "infused the failing LippoLand with tens of millions of dollars, effectively bailing the Riady family out of a precarious financial situation." The committee, citing sources of 1995 and 1996, reported that Lippo owned 59 percent of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, with 2.3 billion dollars in assets, and 70 percent of Hong Kong China Limited, with 1.2 billion dollars in assets.[^4] In 2001 CITIC Ka Wah Bank, controlled by the Chinese state investment company [[CITIC Group|CITIC]], agreed to buy the Hongkong Chinese Bank for about 4.2 billion Hong Kong dollars; the seller's parent was majority owned by Lippo CRE (Financial Services), a joint venture of the Riadys' Lippo China Resources and China Resources Enterprise.[^5]
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's records for LippoBank show a bank chartered in [[San Francisco]] on November 15, 1961 as the Bank of Trade of San Francisco, renamed Bank of Trade on November 13, 1984, moved to [[Los Angeles]] on October 31, 1989, renamed Lippo Bank on January 18, 1990, moved back to San Francisco on March 26, 1998, and merged into the First Bank of California on May 31, 2000.[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm ; Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, *Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns,* S. Rept. 105-167, 1998.
[^2]: Truell, Peter, and Larry Gurwin. *False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most Corrupt Financial Empire*. Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
[^3]: Department of Justice, "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law," press release 01-17, January 11, 2001.
[^4]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2, footnotes 6 and 115-117. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm
[^5]: "Citic Ka Wah snares HKCB." *South China Morning Post,* November 1, 2001. https://www.scmp.com/article/361790/citic-ka-wah-snares-hkcb
[^6]: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, BankFind Suite, institution history for certificate 18453 (Lippo Bank), queried September 23, 2026. https://api.fdic.gov/banks/history?filters=CERT:18453&limit=50

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@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- LippoGroup
- California
- CampaignFinance
- JohnHuang
alias:
- Lippo Bank
- LippoBank California
- Bank of Trade
- Bank of Trade of San Francisco
summary: "California bank chartered in 1961 as the Bank of Trade of San Francisco, renamed Lippo Bank in 1990, which pleaded guilty in 2001 to 86 misdemeanor counts of illegal foreign campaign contributions."
start: 1961-11-15
end: 2000-05-31
location: "Los Angeles and San Francisco, California, USA"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Lippo Group]]"
reverse: true
fn: 3
- type: prosecuted
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
reverse: true
start: 2001-01-11
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
LippoBank was a California state-chartered commercial bank affiliated with the [[Lippo Group]] of [[Mochtar Riady]] and [[James Riady]] of [[Indonesia]]. It was chartered in [[San Francisco]] in 1961 as the Bank of Trade of San Francisco and took the name Lippo Bank in [[Los Angeles]] in January 1990. In January 2001 James Riady agreed to plead guilty on its behalf to 86 misdemeanor counts charging that its agents, Riady and [[John Huang]], had made illegal foreign campaign contributions from 1988 through 1994.[^1][^2]
### Charter History
The records of the [[Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation]] for the bank (certificate 18453), a state-chartered bank that was not a member of the [[Federal Reserve System]], show the following changes:[^1]
- November 15, 1961: opened as the Bank of Trade of San Francisco, San Francisco.
- November 13, 1984: legal name changed to Bank of Trade, still in San Francisco.
- October 31, 1989: main office moved to Los Angeles.
- January 18, 1990: legal name changed to Lippo Bank, Los Angeles.
- March 26, 1998: main office moved back to San Francisco.
- May 31, 2000: merged, without assistance, into the First Bank of California, which survived.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee reported that when the Riadys left [[Worthen Bank]] in [[Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock]] about 1987 they "focused their attention on a bank they previously had purchased in San Francisco, California. Soon thereafter they established the Bank of Trade in Los Angeles, which later became LippoBank." Huang's résumé was among the documents LippoBank produced to the committee. The committee found that the Lippo Group's American operations were generally unprofitable, and that while many in the group's hierarchy wanted unprofitable operations closed, others argued that "LippoBank California was important 'strategically,' in order to have a presence in the United States," and prevailed.[^3]
### Plea
On January 11, 2001, the [[Department of Justice]]'s Campaign Financing Task Force and the United States Attorney in Los Angeles announced that James Riady would plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the [[United States]] and would enter a plea on behalf of LippoBank to 86 misdemeanor counts, paying 8,610,000 dollars in fines levied against himself and the bank. According to the information, contributions made by Huang and LippoBank employees from 1988 through 1991 were reimbursed from May 1990 to July 1991 with money wired from a foreign Lippo entity to Huang's account in [[Hong Kong]]; from August to October 1992, "shortly after Riady pledged $1 million in support of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton's campaign for the Presidency," contributions by Huang were reimbursed with money wired from a foreign Lippo entity into an account Riady kept at LippoBank and passed to Huang in cash; and from January 1993 to February 1994 contributions by Huang and Lippo and LippoBank employees were reimbursed through a fictitious bonus paid to Huang by a foreign Lippo entity.[^2]
The benefits the contributions were meant to secure for the group and "defendant LippoBank" included "Most Favored Nation status for China, open trade policies with Indonesia, normalization of relations with Vietnam, Community Reinvestment Act exemptions for LippoBank, a repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which limited business opportunities for LippoBank, and a relaxation of Taiwanese restrictions on investment by foreign banks," as well as "the deposit of funds into LippoBank by political campaign committees and government agencies." The Justice Department stated that the conduct had occurred before LippoBank's acquisition by [[First Banks America]] on or about March 1, 2000, and that First Banks America had no involvement in it.[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, BankFind Suite, institution history for certificate 18453 (Lippo Bank), queried September 23, 2026. https://api.fdic.gov/banks/history?filters=CERT:18453&limit=50 ; https://api.fdic.gov/banks/institutions?filters=CERT:18453
[^2]: U.S. Department of Justice. "James Riady Pleads Guilty, Will Pay Largest Fine in Campaign Finance History for Violating Federal Election Law." Press release 017, January 11, 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20140715142633/http://www.justice.gov:80/opa/pr/2001/January/017crm.htm
[^3]: House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, *Investigation of Political Fundraising Improprieties and Possible Violations of Law,* H. Rept. 105-829, 1998, vol. 2. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRPT-105hrpt829/html/CRPT-105hrpt829-vol2.htm

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@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "Model Evaluation and Threat Research"
- "Model Evaluation & Threat Research"
- "ARC Evals"
tags:
- Organization
- AISafety
- AIEvaluation
- EffectiveAltruism
summary: "AI model evaluation nonprofit led by Beth Barnes, spun off in December 2023 from Paul Christiano's Alignment Research Center, and partner with RAND in the Canary project funded through the Audacious Project."
start: 2023-12-04
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Beth Barnes]]"
reverse: true
role: "founder and chief executive"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Alignment Research Center]]"
reverse: true
role: "incubated as ARC Evals, 2022 to 2023"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Chris Painter]]"
reverse: true
role: "president"
fn: 5
- type: director_of
with: "[[Adam Gleave]]"
reverse: true
role: "adviser and board member"
fn: 5
- type: director_of
with: "[[Rajiv Dattani]]"
reverse: true
role: "adviser and board member"
fn: 5
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Ajeya Cotra]]"
reverse: true
role: "technical staff"
fn: 5
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Jasmine Dhaliwal]]"
reverse: true
role: "policy staff"
fn: 6
- type: funded
with: "[[The Audacious Project]]"
reverse: true
start: 2024
role: "about 17 million dollars of the 38 million pooled for Canary"
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
METR (Model Evaluation and Threat Research) is a nonprofit that evaluates advanced AI models for dangerous capabilities. It began in 2022 as ARC Evals, a team that [[Beth Barnes]] led inside the [[Alignment Research Center]] (ARC), the alignment-theory organization run by [[Paul Christiano]], and on December 4, 2023, announced its separation into a standalone 501(c)(3) under its present name. The name, pronounced "meter," "nods to metrology," the science of measurement.[^1][^2]
### Spin-Off
Announcing the separation on September 19, 2023, Barnes wrote that ARC had hired her in 2022 and incubated ARC Evals, that Christiano "remained focused on theory, but spent a significant minority of his time overseeing and advising on evaluations work," and that the team had completed independent evaluations of [[OpenAI]]'s GPT-4 and [[Anthropic]]'s Claude in partnership with the two companies and had partnered with the [[United Kingdom]]'s Foundation Model Taskforce. Both the September announcement and the December renaming carried the same note: "While we had initially planned for Paul Christiano to be a board member and advisor, he declined involvement in light of his new role as Head of Safety at the US AI Safety Institute."[^1][^2]
Before the separation, [[Open Philanthropy]] gave ARC 265,000 dollars for general support in March 2022 and 1,250,000 dollars over two years in November 2022.[^3]
### Filings and People
The organization is registered with the [[Internal Revenue Service]] as Model Evaluation And Threat Research, EIN 99-1219864, at a mailing address in [[Covina, California]]; its tax exemption was ruled on March 1, 2024. For 2024 it reported revenue of 13,639,155 dollars and assets of 6,544,206 dollars.[^4]
Its website lists Barnes as founder and chief executive, [[Chris Painter]], formerly a technology and national security fellow at the Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, as president, [[Hjalmar Wijk]] as chief scientist and [[Nate Rush]] as chief technology officer. [[Adam Gleave]], chief executive of [[FAR.AI]], and [[Rajiv Dattani]] are listed as advisers and board members, and [[Alec Radford]], [[Chase Hasbrouck]], [[Marco Mascorro]] and [[Yoshua Bengio]] as advisers. Christiano is not listed. [[Ajeya Cotra]], formerly Open Philanthropy's senior program officer for AI risk, appears among the technical staff, not among the advisers or board.[^5] [[Jasmine Dhaliwal]], who leads federal government engagement and communications, was previously chief of staff at [[FutureHouse]] and, according to her METR biography, "was also Chief of Staff at Open Philanthropy."[^6]
### Funding and Canary
METR states that it has not accepted funding from AI companies, "though we make use of significant free tokens," and that it cannot accept donations "made by or at the direction of frontier AI company employees." It lists as funders [[The Audacious Project]], individuals from [[Jane Street]], the Sijbrandij Foundation, the [[Pew Charitable Trusts]], [[Schmidt Sciences]], the [[Packard Foundation]], the LaCentra-Sumerlin Foundation, the Astralis Foundation and Expa.org, the [[AI Security Institute]], the pooled funds of [[Longview Philanthropy]] and [[Effektiv Spenden]], recommendations by the [[Survival and Flourishing Fund]], and individuals including David Farhi, Geoff Ralston, [[Dylan Field]] and Steve Newman. Open Philanthropy is not named on the list.[^5] In August 2026 it said it had "raised commitments of around $71 million" in the preceding six months.[^7]
In October 2024 METR announced that the Audacious Project, a funding initiative housed at [[TED (conference)|TED]], had "catalyzed approximately $38 million of funding for Canary, a collaboration with METR and RAND focused on developing and deploying evaluations to monitor AI systems for dangerous capabilities," about 17 million dollars of it for METR.[^8] The Audacious Project names the [[RAND Corporation]]'s president, [[Jason Matheny]], and Barnes as the project's leads.[^9] In September 2025 Open Philanthropy gave RAND 10 million dollars over three years "in support of Canary, a collaboration between RAND and METR," on the recommendation of [[Trevor Levin]] of its AI governance and policy team.[^10]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Barnes, Beth. "ARC Evals is spinning out from ARC." METR, September 19, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-09-19-spin-out-announcement/
[^2]: METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
[^3]: Open Philanthropy, "Alignment Research Center, General Support," March 2022, and "Alignment Research Center, General Support (November 2022)," archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20220816132918id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/alignment-research-center-general-support/ ; http://web.archive.org/web/20230512114157id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/alignment-research-center-general-support-november-2022/
[^4]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Model Evaluation And Threat Research," EIN 99-1219864, organization record. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/991219864
[^5]: METR, "About." https://metr.org/about ; team pages for Beth Barnes and Chris Painter. https://metr.org/team/beth-barnes/ ; https://metr.org/team/chris-painter/
[^6]: METR, "Jasmine Dhaliwal," team page. https://metr.org/team/jasmine-dhaliwal/
[^7]: METR, "Funding update," August 14, 2026. https://metr.org/blog/2026-08-14-funding-update/
[^8]: METR, "New Support Through The Audacious Project," October 9, 2024. https://metr.org/blog/2024-10-09-new-support-through-the-audacious-project/
[^9]: The Audacious Project, "Project Canary: A collaboration between METR and RAND." https://audaciousproject.org/grantees/project-canary-a-collaboration-between-metr-and-rand
[^10]: Open Philanthropy, "RAND Corporation, AI Evaluation and Testing," September 2025, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20251025225511id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/rand-corporation-ai-evaluation-and-testing/

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@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Bank
- BCCI
- SaudiArabia
- KhalidBinMahfouz
alias:
- National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia
- NCB
summary: "Jeddah bank controlled by Khalid bin Mahfouz, with which BCCI concealed more than 500 million dollars of lending to its major customers, a practice auditors found continuing in 1990."
location: "Jeddah, Saudi Arabia"
relations:
- type: owned
with: "[[Khalid bin Mahfouz]]"
reverse: true
role: "with his family"
fn: 2
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "held over 500 million dollars of BCCI lending off BCCI's books"
end: 1990-09
fn: 3
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The National Commercial Bank of [[Saudi Arabia]], based in [[Jeddah]], was controlled by [[Khalid bin Mahfouz]], whom the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate Report]] called "the most powerful banker in the Middle East." The *[[Houston Chronicle]]* reported in 1992 that "Mahfouz and his family own the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia."[^1][^2]
### The 1986 Share Purchases
According to the Senate report, the "forced sale" that the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) later contemplated for [[First American Bank|First American]] was "first considered, and attempted, by BCCI, in 1986 in connection with the purchases of BCCI and CCAH stock by the Khalid bin Mahfouz, head of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia." Bin Mahfouz had bought shares of BCCI and of [[Credit and Commerce American Holdings]] (CCAH), the secret holding company of First American, "under a complex agreement that would permit him to purchase both banks, or to hold his interests temporarily with BCCI guaranteeing to buy them back at no risk to bin Mahfouz." The report continued: "After auditors for National Commercial Bank raised questions about bin Mahfouz's actions regarding BCCI, the transactions were fully unwound by 1989, leaving the First American problem for BCCI unsolved." In 1989 BCCI asked [[Clark Clifford]] to retain an investment banker to find buyers for First American, and [[Goldman Sachs]] was engaged in July of that year.[^1]
### Parking
By 1990 the government of [[Abu Dhabi]] had become BCCI's controlling shareholder. "In September, 1990," the Senate report stated, "[[Price Waterhouse]] learned that BCCI had concealed further lending of over $500 million to its major customs by 'parking' that lending with a Middle Eastern bank, namely, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia controlled by Khalid bin Mahfouz." The auditors also found that since the removal of BCCI's chief executive, [[Swaleh Naqvi]], the practice had continued "with the knowledge and approval of the Board representative of the controlling shareholders," the government of Abu Dhabi.[^3] Naqvi had been living under house arrest in Abu Dhabi since March or April 1990, where he kept some 6,000 files whose existence had not been disclosed to the auditors.[^4]
### 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. 7, "BCCI in the United States: Later Acquisitions." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/07later.htm
[^2]: Urban, Jerry. "Bush Said Friend's Arbusto Investment Was His Own, Not Saudi Money." *Houston Chronicle,* June 4, 1992. Reproduced at https://911timeline.s3.amazonaws.com/1990s/houstonchronicle060492.html
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 10, "BCCI and Its Accountants." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/10accounta.htm
[^4]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Stockholders." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
aliases:
- "Coefficient Giving Action Fund"
- "OPAF"
tags:
- Organization
- OpenPhilanthropy
- CoefficientGiving
- GoodVentures
- DustinMoskovitz
- CariTuna
- Lobbying
- PoliticalAdvocacy
summary: "The 501(c)(4) of Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, renamed Coefficient Giving Action Fund, run by the Good Ventures and Open Philanthropy officers, which received about 270 million dollars from 2016 to 2023."
location: "Palo Alto, California"
start: 2016
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Cari Tuna]]"
reverse: true
role: "president and director"
start: 2017
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Holden Karnofsky]]"
reverse: true
role: "executive director, then chief executive; co-CEO from 2021 to July 23, 2023"
start: 2017
end: 2023-07-23
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Holden Karnofsky]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2018
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Alexander Berger]]"
reverse: true
role: "director from 2018; co-CEO from 2021; sole chief executive from July 2023"
start: 2018
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Dustin Moskovitz]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2017
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Divesh Makan]]"
reverse: true
role: "secretary and director"
start: 2017
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Elie Hassenfeld]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
start: 2017
end: 2018
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Tom Van Loben Sels]]"
reverse: true
role: "treasurer"
start: 2017
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Real Justice PAC]]"
start: 2019-10-29
role: "750,000 dollars to its non-contribution account"
fn: 6
- type: represented
with: "[[Arnold & Porter]]"
reverse: true
role: "federal lobbying on rapid antigen COVID-19 testing"
start: 2021-02-22
end: 2021-09
fn: 8
- type: represented
with: "[[Tarplin, Downs & Young]]"
reverse: true
role: "federal lobbying on pandemic preparedness and appropriations"
start: 2021
end: 2022-03
fn: 8
- type: represented
with: "[[Kyle House Group]]"
reverse: true
role: "federal lobbying on foreign assistance and State and Foreign Operations appropriations"
start: 2023
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Open Philanthropy Action Fund is the 501(c)(4) social welfare organization of [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Cari Tuna]], whose donations are not tax-deductible. Its current legal name is Coefficient Giving Action Fund, following the November 2025 renaming of [[Open Philanthropy]] as Coefficient Giving. It holds EIN 81-2644663, with an [[Internal Revenue Service|IRS]] ruling date of August 1, 2018, and files in care of [[Apercen Partners]] LLC at 314 Lytton Avenue, [[Palo Alto]], the address from which the couple's private foundation, the Good Ventures Foundation, also files.[^1][^2][^3] In 2018 the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]* writer [[Marc Gunther]] listed it among the seven entities in which Tuna served "as a director or major donor," describing it as a 501(c)(4) "that supports nonpartisan advocacy."[^4]
### Officers
The fund's officers and directors have included the three directors of the [[Good Ventures]] Foundation and the chief executives of Open Philanthropy, none of them paid by the fund. On the return for 2017 Tuna was president and director, [[Holden Karnofsky]] executive director, [[Divesh Makan]] secretary and director, and Moskovitz a director, with [[Tom Van Loben Sels]] as treasurer. [[Elie Hassenfeld]], who had cofounded [[GiveWell]] with Karnofsky, was a director in 2017 and 2018, and received 186,582 and 222,900 dollars in those years from a related organization. [[Alexander Berger]] joined as a director on the return for 2018, when Karnofsky was styled chief executive officer. Karnofsky and Berger were each listed as co-CEO and director for 2021 and 2022, matching their titles at Open Philanthropy from June 2021, and the return for 2023 listed both as "co-CEO thru 7/23/23," with Berger as chief executive thereafter. On the return for 2024 Berger was chief executive and director and Karnofsky, who had left Open Philanthropy's staff in April 2024 and joined [[Anthropic]] in January 2025, a director only.[^1][^5]
### Finances
The fund reported 55.22 million dollars in contributions for 2016, its first year, and none for 2017. It reported contributions of 4.81 million dollars for 2018, 1.34 million for 2019, 16.0 million for 2020, 66.52 million for 2021, 48.82 million for 2022 and 77.71 million for 2023, about 270.4 million dollars over the eight years. Its expenses were 4.98 million dollars in 2016, 24.12 million in 2019, 89.32 million in 2021 and 77.51 million in 2023. From 2021 its liabilities exceeded its assets: at the end of 2021 it reported 54.06 million dollars in liabilities against 40.72 million in assets, and its net assets stood at minus 18.52 million dollars at the end of 2022 and minus 16.70 million at the end of 2023. It reported gross sales of securities of 51.37 million dollars in 2016, 63.97 million in 2021, 49.80 million in 2022 and 77.37 million in 2023.[^2]
### Real Justice PAC
On October 29, 2019, the fund gave 750,000 dollars to [[Real Justice PAC]], a [[San Francisco]] hybrid PAC with a non-contribution account, which reported the receipt on its 2019 year-end report as "Other Federal Receipts" to its "NON-CONTRIBUTION ACCOUNT," listing the fund's address as 314 Lytton Avenue, Suite 200, Palo Alto. It is the only itemized receipt from the fund in [[Federal Election Commission]] records.[^6] Tuna had given Real Justice PAC 1.9 million dollars in her own name between March 2017 and April 2019.[^7]
### Lobbying
The fund registered as a federal lobbying client on February 22, 2021, describing itself as a "non-profit studying and promoting effective giving for policy, advocacy and social welfare." Its first registrant, the law firm [[Arnold & Porter]] Kaye Scholer, reported 50,000 dollars in the first quarter of 2021 for work on "federal support for rapid antigen testing" and terminated the engagement in the third quarter with no further activity. [[Tarplin, Downs & Young]] reported 270,000 dollars in 2021 and a final 20,000 dollars in the first quarter of 2022 on "pandemic preparedness, innovation, supply chain, biodefense" and appropriations, naming S. 1260, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act of 2021; the budget resolution S. Con. Res. 14; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; and H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act.[^8]
The [[Kyle House Group]] registered the fund in April 2023 for "education and advocacy in support of Open Philanthropy," amended to "education and advocacy regarding U.S. foreign assistance policies and programs, with a focus on cost-effectiveness and innovation." It reported 170,000 dollars for the last three quarters of 2023, 90,000 dollars a quarter in 2024 and 110,000 dollars a quarter from 2025, on the House and Senate State and Foreign Operations appropriations bills, including H.R. 4665 and H.R. 8771 in 2024, H.R. 5300 and H.R. 7006 in 2025, and H.R. 8595, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027, in 2026. Through the second quarter of 2026 the three firms had reported about 1.53 million dollars in lobbying income from the fund, and none of the filings listed artificial intelligence as an issue.[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Coefficient Giving Action Fund," EIN 81-2644663, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2016 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/812644663
[^2]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Coefficient Giving Action Fund," EIN 81-2644663, organization record and Form 990 data for fiscal years 2016 to 2023, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/812644663.json
[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Good Ventures Foundation," EIN 46-1008520. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/461008520
[^4]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
[^5]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024, https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace ; Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." *Fortune,* February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/
[^6]: 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, filed July 7, 2020, image 202007029244274196, retrieved September 23, 2026. http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?202007029244274196
[^7]: 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
[^8]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, client record 208642 and filings for client "Open Philanthropy Action Fund," 2021 to 2026, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Open+Philanthropy+Action+Fund

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@ -28,14 +28,15 @@ relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Holden Karnofsky]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief executive"
role: "chief executive; co-chief executive from June 2021; director of AI strategy from July 2023 until April 2024"
end: 2023-07
fn: 6
- type: head_of
with: "[[Alexander Berger]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief executive"
start: 2023
fn: 1
role: "co-chief executive from June 2021; sole chief executive from July 2023"
start: 2021-06
fn: 12
- type: funded
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
start: 2017-03
@ -57,6 +58,31 @@ relations:
start: 2025-11
role: "36 million dollars"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Redwood Research]]"
start: 2021-11
role: "four grants totaling 9.42 million dollars; grant investigator Nick Beckstead"
fn: 17
- type: funded
with: "[[Redwood Research]]"
start: 2022-08
role: "10.7 million dollars over 18 months"
fn: 17
- type: funded
with: "[[Redwood Research]]"
start: 2023-06
role: "5.3 million dollars"
fn: 17
- type: funded
with: "[[Redwood Research]]"
start: 2025-05
role: "1.1 million dollars for research collaborations"
fn: 17
- type: funded
with: "[[Alignment Research Center]]"
start: 2022-03
role: "1,515,000 dollars in 2022"
fn: 18
created: 2026-06-19
updated: 2026-09-23
---
@ -77,6 +103,18 @@ Muehlhauser was the grant investigator on the 55-million-dollar grant of January
In 2022 Open Philanthropy set aside nearly 3 million dollars for what became the first cohort of the [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]], which pays technology fellows placed in congressional offices, federal agencies and think tanks; the *Politico* reporter [[Brendan Bordelon]] wrote in October 2023 that Open Philanthropy had "effectively created" Horizon. A spokesperson, [[Mike Levine]], said Open Philanthropy "did not play an active role in screening, training, or placement of fellows" and that "the idea that we, our funders, or our grantees are motivated by pecuniary interests is misguided."[^6] By 2025 Coefficient Giving supplied the majority of the funding of the [[Tarbell Center for AI Journalism]], which places paid fellows in newsrooms and publishes the newsletter *Transformer*.[^10] In December 2025 *Semafor* reported that Open Philanthropy had been "bothered by media coverage of it, in particular a series of critical stories from Politico," and had hired political communications staff; its director of communications, [[Naina Bajekal]], was a former executive editor of *Time*, which had hosted four Tarbell fellows.[^11]
### Leadership
Karnofsky led Open Philanthropy as chief executive until June 16, 2021, when he announced that the cofounder Alexander Berger had been "promoted to co-CEO" in "a dual-CEO structure, with both of us reporting directly to the board," Karnofsky keeping biosecurity and AI risk and Berger taking the portfolio renamed "Global Health and Wellbeing."[^12] On July 27, 2023, Karnofsky announced "on behalf of Open Philanthropy's board" that Berger was sole chief executive and that his own title was changing to director of AI strategy; Tuna, styled in the announcement as president, said that "Dustin and I have worked closely with Alexander for many years," and Berger recalled the time "when Holden, Cari, Dustin and I were starting to think about it together."[^13] Karnofsky left the staff on April 29, 2024, for the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]], writing that the organization "would benefit from less ambiguity about my role in its funding decisions (especially given the fact that I'm married to the President of a major AI company)," and that he would remain on its board "at least for the time being."[^14] The same officers ran the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]], a 501(c)(4) whose returns list Karnofsky and Berger as co-CEOs for 2021 and 2022 and "co-CEO thru 7/23/23" for 2023.[^15]
### Redwood Research
Redwood Research, a [[Berkeley]] AI-alignment nonprofit, announced in October 2021 that its board was [[Nate Thomas]], Paul Christiano and Karnofsky; its returns list Karnofsky as treasurer for 2021 and treasurer and CFO for 2022, and as a director until November 2023.[^16] Open Philanthropy recommended four grants totaling 9.42 million dollars to Redwood in November 2021, with [[Nick Beckstead]] as grant investigator, then 10.7 million dollars in August 2022, 5.3 million in June 2023 and 1.1 million in May 2025, before the 36 million dollars of November 2025, a total of 62.52 million dollars. None of the four archived grant pages mentions Karnofsky's or Christiano's board seats. Open Philanthropy's senior program officer for AI risk, [[Ajeya Cotra]], was a Redwood director on its return for 2023 and until August 2024.[^16][^17]
### ARC and Canary
Open Philanthropy gave the [[Alignment Research Center]], founded by Paul Christiano, 265,000 dollars for general support in March 2022 and 1,250,000 dollars over two years in November 2022. The center incubated ARC Evals, which spun off in December 2023 as [[METR]].[^18][^19][^20] In September 2025 Open Philanthropy gave the RAND Corporation 10 million dollars over three years for Canary, "a collaboration between RAND and METR to develop advanced methods for evaluating AI systems," on the recommendation of [[Trevor Levin]] of its AI governance and policy team.[^21]
### Footnotes
[^1]: 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
@ -90,3 +128,13 @@ In 2022 Open Philanthropy set aside nearly 3 million dollars for what became the
[^9]: Open Philanthropy, "Center for AI Safety, General Support (2022)," grant of November 2022, archived January 2, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250102035329/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/center-for-ai-safety-general-support/
[^10]: Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, "Ethics and Standards policies," February 20, 2026. https://www.tarbellcenter.org/ethics-and-standards
[^11]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms
[^12]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Open Philanthropy's New Co-CEO." Open Philanthropy blog, June 16, 2021, archived May 31, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220531031049/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/open-philanthropys-new-co-ceo
[^13]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Alexander Berger is Now Sole CEO of Open Philanthropy." Open Philanthropy, July 27, 2023, archived March 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260317060608/https://coefficientgiving.org/research/alexander-berger-is-now-sole-ceo-of-open-philanthropy/
[^14]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace
[^15]: 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
[^16]: Thomas, Nate. "We're Redwood Research, we do applied alignment research, AMA." LessWrong, October 6, 2021, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHvHvBR8L6oycnMXe/we-re-redwood-research-we-do-applied-alignment-research-ama ; ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," EIN 87-1702255, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2021 to 2024, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871702255 ; Open Philanthropy, "Ajeya Cotra," team biography, archived November 11, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231111135945/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/ajeya-cotra/
[^17]: Open Philanthropy grant pages, archived: "Redwood Research, General Support," November 2021, http://web.archive.org/web/20220811081927/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2022)," http://web.archive.org/web/20221106183007/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2023)," http://web.archive.org/web/20230912095528/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2023/ ; "Redwood Research, AI Safety Research Collaborations," May 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250810094119/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-ai-safety-research-collaborations/
[^18]: Open Philanthropy, "Alignment Research Center, General Support," March 2022, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20220816132918id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/alignment-research-center-general-support/
[^19]: Open Philanthropy, "Alignment Research Center, General Support (November 2022)," archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20230512114157id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/alignment-research-center-general-support-november-2022/
[^20]: METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
[^21]: Open Philanthropy, "RAND Corporation, AI Evaluation and Testing," September 2025, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20251025225511id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/rand-corporation-ai-evaluation-and-testing/

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@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "Public First Action Inc."
- "Public First"
- "Public First PAC"
tags:
- Organization
- SuperPAC
- AIPolicy
- Anthropic
- EffectiveAltruism
summary: "501(c)(4) given 40 million dollars by Anthropic in 2026, linked to the Public First super PAC funded by Anthropic staff, which passes money to committees backing Alex Bores and other candidates."
start: 2025-12
location: "Washington, D.C."
relations:
- type: funded
with: "[[Anthropic]]"
reverse: true
role: "20 million dollars"
start: 2026-02
fn: 3
- type: funded
with: "[[Anthropic]]"
reverse: true
role: "a further 20 million dollars, 40 million in all"
start: 2026-07
fn: 4
- type: funded
with: "[[Dario Amodei]]"
reverse: true
role: "1,000,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-05
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Peter Lofgren]]"
reverse: true
role: "999,900 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Shauna Kravec]]"
reverse: true
role: "500,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Michael Cohen (researcher)]]"
reverse: true
role: "500,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-01
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Jan Leike]]"
reverse: true
role: "400,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Kate Woolverton]]"
reverse: true
role: "250,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Nicholas Joseph]]"
reverse: true
role: "250,000 dollars to the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-06
fn: 2
- type: funded
with: "[[Jobs and Democracy PAC]]"
role: "transfers from the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-03
end: 2026-06
fn: 7
- type: funded
with: "[[Defending Our Values PAC]]"
role: "300,000 dollars from the Public First super PAC"
start: 2026-02
fn: 7
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Bryson Gillette]]"
reverse: true
role: "vendor to the Public First super PAC and the Jobs and Democracy PAC"
fn: 7
- type: contractor_to
with: "[[Steptoe]]"
reverse: true
role: "legal services"
fn: 7
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Public First Action Inc. is a nonprofit political group in [[Washington, D.C.]], at 1930 18th Street NW, which, with a super PAC called Public First and two further political action committees, forms a group of committees spending on candidates in the 2026 elections.[^1][^2] On February 12, 2026, [[Anthropic]] announced that it was "contributing $20 million to Public First Action, a new bipartisan 501(c)(4) that will support public education about AI, promote safeguards, and ensure America leads the AI race." The organization, it wrote, was "founded and led both by Republican and Democratic strategists." Anthropic gave as the reason that "vast resources have flowed to political organizations that oppose these efforts," and listed among the policies the group would pursue "opposing preemption of state laws unless Congress enacts stronger safeguards" and "smart export controls on AI chips."[^3] On July 21, 2026, Anthropic announced "an additional $20 million to Public First Action, bringing our total support to $40 million," describing it as "a nonpartisan organization that educates the public about AI" and stating that both donations "cannot be used to influence the election of any candidate for federal, state, or local office."[^4]
Public First Action Inc. first filed with the [[Federal Election Commission]] on March 10, 2026, as a filer of electioneering communications, under identifier C30003586.[^1] No return for it appeared in ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer by September 2026.[^5]
### The Public First Super PAC
Public First (FEC identifier C00930503), an independent-expenditure-only committee registered on December 12, 2025, with [[M'liss Hadley]] as treasurer, lists the [[Defending Our Values PAC]] as an affiliated committee. It reported 3,910,450 dollars in contributions and 4,416,899.94 dollars in disbursements. Its itemized donors were ten:[^2]
- [[Dario Amodei]], chief executive of Anthropic, 1,000,000 dollars on May 4, 2026.
- Public First Action Inc., 1,000,000 dollars on February 24, 2026.
- [[Peter Lofgren]], member of technical staff at Anthropic, 999,900 dollars on June 8, 2026.
- [[Shauna Kravec]], member of technical staff at Anthropic, 500,000 dollars on June 11, 2026.
- [[Michael Cohen (researcher)|Michael Cohen]], a postdoctoral researcher at the [[University of California]], 500,000 dollars on January 8, 2026.
- [[Jan Leike]], member of technical staff at Anthropic, 400,000 dollars on June 8, 2026.
- [[Kate Woolverton]], software engineer at [[Google DeepMind]], 250,000 dollars on June 10, 2026.
- [[Nicholas Joseph]], member of technical staff at Anthropic, 250,000 dollars on June 10, 2026.
- [[Adam Jermyn]], research scientist at Anthropic, 5,000 dollars on June 22, 2026.
- [[Dillon Bowen]], member of technical staff at [[OpenAI]], 5,000 dollars on June 13, 2026.
Lofgren, Leike, Jermyn, Woolverton and Bowen also gave 5,000-dollar contributions to the political action committee of [[Americans for Responsible Innovation]].[^6]
The super PAC passed most of its money to the [[Jobs and Democracy PAC]], in transfers that included 500,000 dollars on March 4, 750,000 dollars on May 22, 150,000 dollars on May 26, 400,000 dollars on June 3 and 2,000,000 dollars on June 12, 2026, and gave 300,000 dollars to the Defending Our Values PAC on February 11, 2026. Its vendors included [[The Money Wheel]] for compliance and accounting, [[Bryson Gillette]], [[Minnow Co]] for communications and the law firm [[Steptoe]].[^7]
### Jobs and Democracy PAC
The Jobs and Democracy PAC (FEC identifier C00928374) reported 20,725,723.37 dollars in receipts, 19,714,370.04 dollars in disbursements and 17,859,226.24 dollars in independent expenditures, placed through Bryson Gillette.[^8] Its principal beneficiary was [[Alex Bores]], the New York Assembly member and sponsor of the state's [[RAISE Act]], in the Democratic primary for [[New York]]'s 12th congressional district: the FEC's aggregation by candidate shows 15,026,937.99 dollars spent supporting him, in 114 transactions.[^8] On February 20, 2026, *[[TechCrunch]]* reported that Public First Action was "spending $450,000 to boost Bores" in the race, where the super PAC [[Leading the Future]] "has already poured $1.1 million into ads attacking Bores."[^9] Leading the Future's contributions, 75.1 million dollars by July 2026, came from [[Andreessen Horowitz]], [[Greg Brockman]] of OpenAI and Anna Brockman, and [[Perplexity]].[^10] Think Big, a committee to which Leading the Future transferred 20 million dollars, spent 8,145,697.68 dollars opposing him.[^11]
The Jobs and Democracy PAC also reported expenditures supporting [[Valerie Foushee]] in [[North Carolina]], [[Brian Poindexter]] in [[Ohio]], [[Bob Brooks]] in [[Pennsylvania]] and [[Colin Allred]] in [[Texas]], and an expenditure opposing [[Jesse Jackson Jr.]] in [[Illinois]], whom Think Big supported.[^8][^11]
### Defending Our Values PAC
The Defending Our Values PAC (FEC identifier C00928390) reported 8,406,067.63 dollars in receipts, 7,430,648.98 dollars in disbursements and 7,064,884.59 dollars in independent expenditures. It supported [[Carlos De La Cruz Jr.]] and [[Alexandra Mealer]] in Texas, [[Celeste Maloy]] in [[Utah]], [[Rhett Marques]] in [[Alabama]], [[Kevin Hern]] in [[Oklahoma]], [[Scott Singer]] in [[Florida]], [[John Cowan]] in [[Georgia]] and [[Pete Ricketts]] in [[Nebraska]], and opposed [[Daniel Franzese]] in Florida and [[Briscoe Cain]] in Texas.[^8] Hern was also supported by American Mission, one of the two committees to which Leading the Future transferred most of its money.[^10][^11]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Federal Election Commission, committee C30003586, "Public First Action Inc.," retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C30003586/
[^2]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00930503, "Public First," statement of organization, financial totals and itemized receipts (Schedule A), retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00930503/ ; https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00930503
[^3]: Anthropic. "Anthropic is donating $20 million to Public First Action." February 12, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/donate-public-first-action
[^4]: Anthropic. "Anthropic is donating another $20 million to Public First Action." July 21, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/donation-public-first-action
[^5]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, search for "Public First Action," September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/search?q=%22Public+First+Action%22
[^6]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A) for committee C00893883, "Americans for Responsible Innovation Ltd. Political Action Committee," retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00893883
[^7]: Federal Election Commission, itemized disbursements (Schedule B) for committee C00930503, 22 records, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?committee_id=C00930503
[^8]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00928374 ("Jobs and Democracy PAC") and C00928390 ("Defending Our Values PAC"), financial totals and independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928374 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00928390
[^9]: Bellan, Rebecca. "Anthropic-funded group backs candidate attacked by rival AI super PAC." *TechCrunch,* February 20, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/anthropic-funded-group-backs-candidate-attacked-by-rival-ai-super-pac/
[^10]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00916114, "Leading the Future," itemized receipts (Schedule A) and disbursements (Schedule B), retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00916114 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?committee_id=C00916114
[^11]: Federal Election Commission, committees C00923417 ("Think Big") and C00916692 ("American Mission"), independent expenditures (Schedule E), including the by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417 ; https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00916692

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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
aliases:
- "Redwood Research Group"
- "Redwood Research Group Inc"
tags:
- Organization
- AISafety
- OpenPhilanthropy
- EffectiveAltruism
- Longtermism
- Berkeley
summary: "Berkeley AI-alignment nonprofit founded in 2021, with Open Philanthropy co-CEO Holden Karnofsky on its board until 2023, to which Open Philanthropy gave 62.52 million dollars from 2021 to 2025."
location: "Berkeley, California"
start: 2021
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Nate Thomas]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief executive and president, later board chair"
start: 2021
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Buck Shlegeris]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief technology officer, chief executive from 2023"
start: 2021
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Holden Karnofsky]]"
reverse: true
role: "director; treasurer, later treasurer and CFO"
start: 2021
end: 2023-11
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Paul Christiano]]"
reverse: true
role: "director; secretary"
start: 2021
end: 2023-06
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Ajeya Cotra]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
end: 2024-08
fn: 8
- type: member_of
with: "[[Ammon Bartram]]"
reverse: true
role: "director"
fn: 8
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Bill Zito]]"
reverse: true
role: "chief operating officer"
start: 2021
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Ryan Greenblatt]]"
reverse: true
role: "member of technical staff, later chief scientist"
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Redwood Research is a [[Berkeley]], California nonprofit that conducts AI alignment research. Its legal name is Redwood Research Group Inc, EIN 87-1702255, a 501(c)(3) whose tax exemption dates from September 1, 2021, filing in care of Nathaniel Thomas at 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1200, Berkeley.[^1] Announcing the group on October 6, 2021, [[Nate Thomas]] wrote: "Redwood Research is a longtermist research lab focusing on applied AI alignment. We're led by Nate Thomas (CEO), [[Buck Shlegeris]] (CTO), and [[Bill Zito]] (COO/software engineer); our board is Nate, [[Paul Christiano]] and [[Holden Karnofsky]]. We currently have ten people on staff."[^2] Karnofsky was then co-chief executive of [[Open Philanthropy]], which recommended its first grants to Redwood the following month and had given it 62.52 million dollars by the end of 2025.[^3][^4][^5][^6][^7]
### Board and Officers
On Redwood's first return, for 2021, Nathaniel Thomas was chief executive and president, Michael Shlegeris (Buck Shlegeris) chief technology officer and William Zito chief operating officer, each paid 56,250 dollars; Holden Karnofsky was treasurer and Paul Christiano secretary, both unpaid. For 2022 the return listed Karnofsky as treasurer and CFO and Christiano as secretary, both unpaid, with Thomas as chairperson and president at 274,361 dollars and the highest-paid employee, the member of technical staff [[Daniel Ziegler]], at 384,872 dollars. The return for 2023 listed Christiano as a director "thru 6/23" and Karnofsky as a director "thru 11/23," with [[Ajeya Cotra]] as a director, Shlegeris as chief executive and director, and Thomas as director and board chair.[^1][^8] Cotra was then Open Philanthropy's senior program officer for "Potential Risks from Advanced AI," leading its "grantmaking on technical research that could help to clarify and reduce catastrophic risks from advanced AI."[^9] The return for 2024 listed Cotra as a director "thru 8/24," [[Ammon Bartram]] as a director, [[Ryan Greenblatt]] as chief scientist at 314,922 dollars, and Shlegeris as chief executive at 272,164 dollars.[^8]
Christiano left the board in June 2023. In April 2024 the Commerce Secretary, [[Gina Raimondo]], named him head of AI safety at the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]] at the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]].[^10] In July 2023 Karnofsky's Open Philanthropy title changed from co-CEO to director of AI strategy; he left Redwood's board in November 2023, left Open Philanthropy's staff for the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] on April 29, 2024, and joined [[Anthropic]], whose president [[Daniela Amodei]] is his wife, in January 2025.[^11][^12]
### Open Philanthropy Grants
Open Philanthropy recommended "four grants totaling $9,420,000 to Redwood Research for general support" in November 2021, describing it as "a new research institution that conducts research to better understand and make progress on AI alignment in order to improve the long-run future." The grant investigator was [[Nick Beckstead]], who had joined Open Philanthropy in 2014 and was its program officer for global catastrophic risks, and the page noted that "Redwood Research staff also reviewed this page prior to publication."[^3][^13] By the February 2022 launch of the [[FTX Future Fund]], financed by [[Sam Bankman-Fried]], Beckstead was its chief executive.[^14] Open Philanthropy followed with 10.7 million dollars "over 18 months" in August 2022, 5.3 million dollars in June 2023, 1.1 million dollars in May 2025 "to support collaborations with external researchers working on technical AI safety projects," and 36 million dollars in November 2025.[^4][^5][^6][^7] None of the four archived grant pages for 2021 to 2025 mentions Karnofsky, Christiano or a board relationship; Open Philanthropy's 2017 page for its 30-million-dollar grant to [[OpenAI]] had disclosed that Christiano and [[Dario Amodei]] were technical advisers who lived in Karnofsky's house.[^3][^4][^5][^6][^15]
Redwood reported contributions of 13.9 million dollars for 2021, 11.97 million for 2022 and 9.4 million for 2023. Its expenses were 2.34 million dollars in 2021, 12.76 million in 2022 and 12.59 million in 2023, and its total assets fell from 14.52 million dollars at the end of 2021 to 11.98 million at the end of 2023.[^1]
### Constellation
On Redwood's return for 2022, [[James Bregan]] was listed as "Head of Constellation Operations," paid 234,234 dollars.[^8] The [[Constellation Institute]], EIN 93-2465256, a 501(c)(3) with a tax exemption dated January 1, 2024, files from the same address as Redwood, 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1200, Berkeley. Its return for 2023 listed Nathaniel Thomas as chief executive, Bregan as secretary and treasurer, William Zito as president, and [[Eli Rose]] and [[Tyler Storlie]] as directors; the compensation it paid Thomas (91,091 dollars), Bregan (103,953 dollars) and Zito (50,341 dollars) matches the "related organization" compensation reported for the same three men on Redwood's return for that year, and Redwood's own payments to them (183,333, 145,833 and 78,138 dollars) appear as related-organization pay on Constellation's. Constellation reported 4.9 million dollars in contributions for 2023. Its return for 2024 listed Thomas as chief executive "thru 7/24" and Zito as president "thru 11/24."[^8][^16]
### Later Work
In July 2026 OpenAI brought in Redwood Research to analyze an AI-agent attack on [[Hugging Face]].[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," EIN 87-1702255, organization record and Form 990 data for fiscal years 2021 to 2023, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/871702255.json
[^2]: Thomas, Nate. "We're Redwood Research, we do applied alignment research, AMA." LessWrong, October 6, 2021, linkpost of the EA Forum original. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHvHvBR8L6oycnMXe/we-re-redwood-research-we-do-applied-alignment-research-ama
[^3]: Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support," November 2021, archived August 11, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220811081927/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support/
[^4]: Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support (2022)," August 2022, archived November 6, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20221106183007/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2/
[^5]: Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support (2023)," June 2023, archived September 12, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20230912095528/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2023/
[^6]: Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, AI Safety Research Collaborations," May 2025, archived August 10, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250810094119/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-ai-safety-research-collaborations/
[^7]: 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
[^8]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2021 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871702255
[^9]: Open Philanthropy, "Ajeya Cotra," team biography, archived November 11, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231111135945/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/ajeya-cotra/
[^10]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
[^11]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Alexander Berger is Now Sole CEO of Open Philanthropy." Open Philanthropy, July 27, 2023, archived March 17, 2026, http://web.archive.org/web/20260317060608/https://coefficientgiving.org/research/alexander-berger-is-now-sole-ceo-of-open-philanthropy/ ; Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace
[^12]: Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." *Fortune,* February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/
[^13]: Open Philanthropy, "Nick Beckstead," team biography, archived September 24, 2021. http://web.archive.org/web/20210924070234/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/nick-beckstead
[^14]: "Announcing the Future Fund," reposted at Marginal Revolution, March 2022. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/03/announcing-the-future-fund.html
[^15]: Open Philanthropy, "OpenAI, General Support," grant of March 2017, archived January 1, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250101012608/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/openai-general-support/
[^16]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Constellation Institute Inc," EIN 93-2465256, organization record, Form 990 data and Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/932465256

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---
category: "Private Organization"
alias:
- SPLC
- SPLC Hatewatch
tags:
- Organization
- Nonprofit
- Extremism
- HateGroupClassification
- Alabama
summary: "Montgomery, Alabama nonprofit founded in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. that classifies hate and extremist groups; it fired its co-founder Dees in 2019."
start: 1971
location: "Montgomery, Alabama"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Morris Dees]]"
reverse: true
start: 1971
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Joseph Levin Jr.]]"
reverse: true
start: 1971
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Richard Cohen (SPLC)|Richard Cohen]]"
reverse: true
end: 2019-03
role: "president"
fn: 8
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a nonprofit organization in [[Montgomery, Alabama]], founded in 1971 by the civil rights lawyers [[Morris Dees]] and [[Joseph Levin Jr.]], which describes its founding purpose as "to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all."[^1] It is best known for tracking and classifying groups it considers hate and extremist organizations, through its "extremist files" and its Hatewatch and *Intelligence Report* publications.[^1][^2]
### Litigation and Security
Dees won a 7 million dollar judgment against the [[United Klans of America]] on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, whose son had been murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]]. The center's office was firebombed in 1983, and three Klansmen later pleaded guilty. It operates from a high-security building near the church where [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] first served as a pastor.[^2]
### Finances
The center's Form 990 for the fiscal year ending October 2025, filed on June 11, 2026, reported total revenue of 149,576,773 dollars, of which 127,336,336 dollars were contributions, 16,234,912 dollars came from the sale of assets and 5,571,519 dollars from investment income; expenses of 127,910,803 dollars; total assets of 921,762,979 dollars; and net assets of 886,648,000 dollars, up from 786,768,246 dollars a year earlier.[^3] Tax records for 2017 had shown about 450 million dollars in assets.[^2]
### Classifications
The center files the [[Pioneer Fund]] under its "White Nationalist" category. Its file describes the fund as founded in [[New York City]] in 1937 by [[Wickliffe Draper]], with an original mission of "race betterment" for people "deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons," and records its grants to [[Arthur Jensen]], [[J. Philippe Rushton]], [[Richard Lynn]] and [[Jared Taylor]]; its support for the American Immigration Control Foundation and the [[Federation for American Immigration Reform]], both of which the center lists as hate groups; the association of [[Roger Pearson]] with [[Willis Carto]]'s [[Liberty Lobby]]; Rushton's leadership of the fund from 2002 to 2012, during which he personally received more than 1 million dollars; the 286,372 dollars paid to Lynn's [[Ulster Institute for Social Research|Ulster Institute]] from 2002 to 2006; and [[Walter P. Kistler]] as a remaining major donor.[^4]
In 2019 Hatewatch identified "Alexander Slavros," the founder of the [[Iron March]] forum, as [[Alisher Mukhitdinov]] through a domain registration record.[^5] The center's staff have testified before Congress on extremism: Heidi Beirich testified with the [[Anti-Defamation League]]'s Mark Pitcavage before a House Armed Services subcommittee on February 11, 2020, on [[The Base]], and at the House Armed Services Committee hearing on extremism in the armed forces on March 24, 2021, chief of staff [[Lecia Brooks]] testified that the center had "identified dozens of former and active military personnel among the membership of some of the country's most dangerous and violent white supremacist groups," including [[Atomwaffen Division]].[^6][^7]
### 2019 Leadership Crisis
On March 14, 2019, the center announced that it had fired Dees, whose employment had ended the previous day, without giving a reason. A statement by its president, [[Richard Cohen (SPLC)|Richard Cohen]], said: "As a civil rights organization, the SPLC is committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world. When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action." Dees, then 82, said the matter involved a personnel issue: "I think the Southern Poverty Law Center is a very fine group and I devoted nearly 50 years of my life to it and I'm proud of its work. About being fired, all I can say is it wasn't my decision and I wish the center the best."[^2] The center announced "an immediate, top-to-bottom external review of our workplace culture and our past practices and policies," and less than two weeks after the firing Cohen stepped down, saying, "We've heard from our staff that we need to do a better job of making sure that our workplace embodies the values we espouse," and that the center had brought in [[Tina Tchen]], formerly chief of staff to [[Michelle Obama]], to conduct the review. The board chairman, Bryan Fair, said that "the walk towards justice must sometimes start at your own front door."[^8]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "About." https://www.splcenter.org/about
[^2]: "Southern Poverty Law Center dismisses co-founder," Associated Press, *PBS NewsHour,* March 14, 2019. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/southern-poverty-law-center-dismisses-co-founder
[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Southern Poverty Law Center Inc," EIN 63-0598743, Form 990 for the fiscal year ending October 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/630598743
[^4]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Pioneer Fund," extremist file. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/pioneer-fund/
[^5]: Hayden, Michael Edison. "Mysterious Neo-Nazi Advocated Terrorism for Six Years Before Disappearance," Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch, May 21, 2019. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/mysterious-neo-nazi-advocated-terrorism-six-years-disappearance/
[^6]: U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Military Personnel, hearing of February 11, 2020, CHRG-116hhrg42962. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CHRG-116hhrg42962
[^7]: U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, "Extremism in the Armed Forces," H.A.S.C. No. 117-14, March 24, 2021, CHRG-117hhrg45011. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/CHRG-117hhrg45011
[^8]: "Southern Poverty Law Center president Richard Cohen resigns after a co-founder was fired," *CNN,* March 24, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/us/southern-poverty-law-center-splc-dees-cohen

25
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Tarbell Center for AI Journalism.md
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@ -28,8 +28,17 @@ relations:
reverse: true
role: "executive director"
fn: 1
- type: funded
with: "[[Survival and Flourishing Fund]]"
reverse: true
role: "between 100,000 and 1 million dollars"
fn: 10
- type: funded
with: "[[EA Infrastructure Fund]]"
reverse: true
fn: 10
created: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-22
updated: 2026-09-23
---
The Tarbell Center for AI Journalism was launched in 2022 and funds work by early-career technology journalists, in its words to help society "navigate the emergence of increasingly advanced AI."[^1] Its ethics policy of 2026 covers "all Tarbell staff, fellows, and grantees, including our in-house publication [[Transformer]]," and states: "As of 2025, the majority of our funding originates with a single funder, [[Coefficient Giving]] (formerly known as Open Philanthropy)." Donors, it says, "have no role in reviewing, vetting, or approving our staff, fellows, or grantees," and fellows must disclose their Tarbell association on their author pages. Tarbell staff may not own individual shares of companies that develop or deploy advanced AI.[^2]
@ -48,6 +57,14 @@ On May 23, 2024, *Transformer*, edited by [[Shakeel Hashim]], published an artic
On September 2, 2026, *Effort*, a publication founded by Chau, published an unsigned investigation titled "How [[Effective Altruism]] Bought the Media." It stated that all six participants in a *Guardian* article on the forecast "[[AI 2027]]," including the journalist and the publisher, were paid by three donors: Coefficient Giving, [[Jaan Tallinn]]'s [[Survival and Flourishing Fund]] and [[Effective Ventures]]. It wrote that Coefficient paid the journalist's salary through the Tarbell Fellowship and had given the *Guardian* more than 3 million dollars, that "Coefficient pays the salaries of two dozen journalists at major news outlets," and that "58/100" of the *Time 100* profiles were written by Tarbell-paid journalists. It also tabulated grants from Open Philanthropy, [[EA Funds]], the Future of Life Institute, the [[Long-Term Future Fund]] and the [[Center for AI Safety]] to YouTube channels, among them [[Rational Animations]] and [[Robert Miles AI Safety]].[^4][^5] Chau promoted it the same day on X: "BREAKING: AI Doomers Are Buying Potemkin Articles."[^6]
### Funding
The fellowship began as a project of [[Training for Good]], to which Open Philanthropy recommended a grant of 575,000 dollars in September 2023 "to support the Tarbell Fellowship, a one-year program for early-career journalists interested in covering emerging technologies (especially artificial intelligence)," including general operating support and an extension for a current fellow. Open Philanthropy then gave the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism 816,000 dollars in general support in November 2024, noting that this "follows our September 2023 support for the Tarbell Fellowship (the project which later became Tarbell)," and 2,888,000 dollars for operating costs in August 2025, the three grants totalling 4,279,000 dollars. The first two grants were filed under Open Philanthropy's focus area "Navigating Transformative AI" and the third under "Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building."[^7][^8][^9]
In November 2025 the *Washington Examiner* reporter [[Robert Schmad]] listed Tarbell's funders as Open Philanthropy, the [[EA Infrastructure Fund]], the Future of Life Institute and the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and reported that Tarbell disclosed receiving between 100,000 and 1 million dollars each from the Future of Life Institute, which is itself funded by Open Philanthropy, and from the Survival and Flourishing Fund, one of whose co-founders, [[Andrew Critch]], posts about AI risk and grant opportunities on the main effective altruism forum. The Future of Life Institute's donation did not appear on its most recent tax filing, which covered activities through the end of 2023. The fellowship grew from seven fellows in 2024 to sixteen in 2025, placed at *Bloomberg*, *Time*, *The Information*, *The Guardian*, NBC News, *The Verge* and the *Los Angeles Times*; NBC News took on its fellow in September 2025, a month before announcing large layoffs. Crosson told the paper: "The Tarbell Center maintains strict editorial independence from all funders and donors... Our fellows and their host newsrooms maintain complete autonomy from Tarbell, and we're proud of the role we play in supporting independent journalism from a wide range of perspectives."[^10]
[[Will Henshall]], a Tarbell fellow placed at *Time* in 2023 and 2024, joined Coefficient Giving, as Open Philanthropy was later renamed, as a program officer for AI governance and policy in July 2024.[^11][^12]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms
@ -56,3 +73,9 @@ On September 2, 2026, *Effort*, a publication founded by Chau, published an unsi
[^4]: Effort Investigations Desk. "How Effective Altruism Bought the Media." *Effort,* September 2, 2026. https://www.effort.news/tarbell
[^5]: Effort News, "About." https://www.effort.news/about
[^6]: Chau, Brian (@brianchau57). Post on X, September 2, 2026. https://x.com/brianchau57/status/2095128785955987698
[^7]: Open Philanthropy, "Training for Good, Operating Costs and Tarbell Fellowship," September 2023, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20240225122410id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/training-for-good-operating-costs-and-tarbell-fellowship/
[^8]: Open Philanthropy, "Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, General Support," November 2024, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20251030212332id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/tarbell-center-for-ai-journalism-general-support/
[^9]: Open Philanthropy, "Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, Operating Costs," August 2025, archived. http://web.archive.org/web/20251007113445id_/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/tarbell-center-for-ai-journalism-operating-costs/
[^10]: Schmad, Robert. "Tech donors fund media fellowship shaping coverage of their pet issue." *Washington Examiner,* November 14, 2025. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3884823/tech-donors-fund-media-fellowship-shaping-coverage-pet-issue/
[^11]: Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, "Will Henshall." https://www.tarbellcenter.org/fellows/will-henshall
[^12]: Coefficient Giving, "Will Henshall," team page, archived May 23, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260523181838id_/https://coefficientgiving.org/team/will-henshall/

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Media
- Newspaper
- DowJones
- BCCI
- UnitedStates
alias:
- Wall Street Journal
- WSJ
summary: "Dow Jones & Company's New York financial daily, launched by Charles Dow and Edward Jones in 1889, whose 1991 and 1992 BCCI reporting the Senate cited repeatedly."
start: 1889
location: "New York City, USA"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Charles Dow]]"
reverse: true
start: 1889
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Edward Jones]]"
reverse: true
start: 1889
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Dow Jones & Company]]"
reverse: true
start: 1889
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Clarence Barron]]"
reverse: true
role: "bought Dow, Jones & Company, including the Journal, for $130,000"
start: 1902-03
end: 1921
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
*The Wall Street Journal* is a daily financial newspaper published in [[New York City]] by [[Dow Jones & Company]]. [[Charles Dow]] launched it with [[Edward Jones]] in the summer of 1889, seven years after the two founded Dow, Jones & Company with [[Charles Bergstresser]]. In 1991 and 1992 its reporters covered the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), and the Senate report on the bank cited the paper's articles on BCCI's founding, its American lawyers, its commodities affiliate [[Capcom]] and [[Abu Dhabi]]'s American investments.[^1][^2]
### Dow Jones and the Founding
Dow and Jones arrived in New York from [[Rhode Island]] in 1879, "with a liking for journalism and an ear for financial gossip." Dow had worked for several newspapers before teaming up with Jones and Bergstresser to found Dow, Jones & Company in 1882. In 1885 Dow became a member of the [[New York Stock Exchange]], where he formulated what became known as the Dow theory of stock market movements. Jones left the *Journal* in January 1899.[^1]
In March 1902 [[Clarence Barron]] bought Dow, Jones & Company, including its news agencies in Boston and New York and the *Wall Street Journal*, for 130,000 dollars; there was no public announcement, and Dow and Bergstresser resigned their directorships. Dow died of a heart attack at 51 at his Brooklyn home in December of that year. [[Hugh Bancroft]] joined the board and in 1907 married Barron's daughter Jane. When Barron died in 1921 he left an estate of 1.5 million dollars to [[Jane Bancroft]], who had inherited the majority shares on her mother's death in 1918; Hugh Bancroft became president.[^1]
The paper's circulation fell to a low of 28,000 in 1938, and about that time its editor [[Casey Hogate]] broadened it from strictly financial reports to general news; by 1961 circulation approached 800,000. In the 1980s electronic publishing replaced the *Journal* as the company's principal growth business, and Dow Jones acquired the quotation service [[Telerate]]. The Bancroft family long followed a policy of noninterference in Dow Jones's operations, in part to protect the editorial independence of its publications.[^1]
### BCCI Coverage
The report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] opened its chapter on the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] by noting that the department's handling of BCCI had "been criticized in numerous editorials in major newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times."[^3] Among the *Journal* pieces the report cited were:
- [[Najam Sethi]], "BCCI Founder: These Things Happen," July 29, 1991, cited for the account that [[Agha Hasan Abedi]] flew to Abu Dhabi in 1966 with one assistant and an oriental rug and secured [[Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan|Sheikh Zayed]]'s permission for the [[United Bank Limited|United Bank]] to open a branch there.[^4]
- [[Jill Abramson]], "Clark Clifford and a Legal Armada Gave BCCI a Patina of Respectability," August 1, 1991.[^5]
- A report that the former senator [[Charles Mathias]], chairman of the audit committee of [[First American Bank|First American]], wrote to [[Clark Clifford]] on August 2, 1991, urging him and [[Robert Altman]] to resign: "In recent weeks, there has been a worrisome outflow of deposits which continues to this day," and "you and Bob are perceived as the link between BCCI ...and First American."[^5]
- A report of October 23, 1991, quoting a member of the late [[Zia ul-Haq|General Zia]]'s cabinet: "It was Arab money that was pouring through BCCI."[^6]
- [[Peter Truell]]'s front-page article of November 22, 1991, on Capcom, cited for the account of "mirror image" trading by [[Syed Ziauddin Ali Akbar]].[^7]
- An article on payments of 100,000 dollars made in July and August 1988 by Capcom to [[Richard Fear]], formerly of [[Price Waterhouse]] in London, which Price Waterhouse told the Senate it first learned of in September 1991.[^8]
- A "lengthy article" of May 20, 1992, on the Washington law firm of [[Patton, Boggs & Blow]], which it said had "served as headquarters for a billion-dollar enterprise called Real Estate Operations, Inc., owned by Sheikh Zayed's Abu Dhabi government," holding nearly one billion dollars in American investments through 22 real estate investment companies, 10 partnerships and three shell corporations.[^9]
The report also recorded, citing an aide to former Treasury Secretary [[Donald Regan]], that Regan told a *Journal* reporter who reached him at home in August 1991 that he had not been shown a 1985 [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] memorandum on BCCI, and that Mulholland, the CIA's liaison officer in the Treasury, later advised him that CIA records showed Mulholland had provided it to him.[^6] It cited the *Journal* for the statement of [[Charles W. Hostler]], [[United States]] ambassador to [[Bahrain]], that he had from time to time given financial advice to [[Mohammed Hammoud]].[^10] Its account of the 1978 attempt by [[Bert Lance]] and BCCI clients to take over [[Financial General Bankshares]] cited the *Journal* of February 14, 1978.[^11]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Dow Jones & Company, Inc.," *International Directory of Company Histories* (St. James Press), reproduced at company-histories.com, accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.company-histories.com/Dow-Jones-Company-Inc-Company-History.html
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the US Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm
[^4]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," n. 16. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm
[^6]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 11, "BCCI, The CIA and Foreign Intelligence." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
[^7]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 21, "Capcom," n. 28. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/21capcom.htm
[^8]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 10, "BCCI and Its Accountants." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/10accounta.htm
[^9]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Shareholders." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm
[^10]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 15, "Mohammed Hammoud: BCCI's Flexible Front-Man." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/15hammoud.htm
[^11]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 6, "BCCI in the United States: Initial Entry and FGB and NBG Takeovers," n. 50. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/06early.htm

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- Accountancy
- BCCI
- Liquidation
summary: "British accountancy firm appointed provisional liquidator of BCCI in the United Kingdom after the bank's closure on July 5, 1991, and described in Parliament as lead liquidator of its Luxembourg holding company."
location: "London, United Kingdom"
relations:
- type: investigated
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "provisional liquidator in the United Kingdom; lead liquidator"
start: 1991-07
fn: 1
- type: represented
with: "[[Michael Crystal]]"
reverse: true
role: "Queen's Counsel for the English court-appointed liquidators"
fn: 3
- type: represented
with: "[[Nussbaum and Wald]]"
reverse: true
role: "Washington counsel to the BCCI liquidators"
start: 1992
fn: 5
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Touche Ross was a British firm of accountants. After the [[Bank of England]] and regulators in other jurisdictions closed the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) on Friday, July 5, 1991, the [[United Kingdom]] courts, on a petition by the Bank of England, appointed Touche Ross provisional liquidator of the bank.[^1]
### Appointment
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, [[John Maples]], told the [[House of Commons]] on July 8, 1991: "In the United Kingdom, following a petition made by the Bank of England, the United Kingdom courts have appointed Touche Ross as provisional liquidator. The effect of this action is that deposits with the United Kingdom branches of BCCI SA are frozen." The action followed "prima facia evidence, contained in a report commissioned by the Bank of England and recently received, of widespread fraud in a number of jurisdictions stretching back over a number of years." The Bank of England met the main high street banks and the liquidator that morning to arrange help for small businesses that had banked with BCCI, and Maples announced that "Touche Ross is willing for six weeks to give free advice to any small business affected by the BCCI winding-up." Answering a member, he stated that "The lead liquidator is the liquidator of the holding company in Luxembourg," naming Touche Ross, and described the liquidators in the other countries as its agents, adding that this was "perhaps" not "a proper, technical, legal description."[^1]
The Senate report of Senators [[John Kerry]] and [[Hank Brown]] recorded that liquidators were appointed by the District Court of [[Luxembourg]], where BCCI was incorporated, and quoted the chief liquidator, [[Brian Smouha]], whom its list of witnesses described as "Court Appointed Fiduciary for BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) SA and Bank of Credit and Commerce International, S.A., London, England."[^2][^3]
### Findings
The Senate report stated that the findings of BCCI's former auditors, [[Price Waterhouse]], "were later affirmed by its successor accountants, Touche Ross, who handled the liquidation of BCCI. A year after becoming liquidator, Touche Ross noted that the true picture of BCCI's activities was distorted by such practices as 'loan parking,' 'artificial fund transfers,' the provision of multiple loans to a customer, each secured by the same property, and many similar improper practices." Its source was the firm's *Report on the Activities Undertaken in Luxembourg and the UK Covering the Liquidation Period Up to 15 April 1992*.[^4]
### Abu Dhabi
Smouha testified that the liquidators' "responsibility is to use the resources in the liquidation estates to maximize recoveries to be made available to creditors and depositors. [A]s far as we are able consistent with that responsibility, we endeavor to cooperate with numerous investigative authorities in a number of countries." The Senate report drew the conclusion that where investigation threatened recoveries, the liquidators were bound "to sacrifice the investigation and uncovering the truth about what happened to the goal of maximizing funds to return to the creditors."[^2]
Smouha testified that after initially being denied access, the liquidators had since late summer 1991 seen documents of BCCI's Central Credit Division in [[Abu Dhabi]] for loan recovery only, that a court-appointed receiver there would not let them remove documents, and that key former employees under arrest in Abu Dhabi were in the control of its public prosecutor. Under the settlement the liquidators negotiated with the government of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi was to contribute 1.7 billion dollars and would pursue claims against BCCI's former auditors, certain former solicitors and certain individuals formerly responsible for its management, with the liquidators sharing in half of any recovery. The liquidators' barrister, [[Michael Crystal]], testified that the arrangements "will not prevent regulators in jurisdictions who have access to international treaties . . . from continuing to pursue criminals and bring them to justice." The report called this testimony "technically correct, but as a practical matter, misleading."[^2]
The liquidators' communications with the subcommittee in June 1992 went through the Washington law firm [[Nussbaum and Wald]].[^5] The English liquidators of BCCI SA were the claimants in [[Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England]], an action alleging dishonest supervision by the Bank of England, which they abandoned on November 2, 2005, the 256th day of trial, after twelve years of litigation.[^6]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Bank of Credit and Commerce International." House of Commons Debates (Hansard), vol. 194, July 8, 1991 (statement of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Maples). https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1991/jul/08/bank-of-credit-and-commerce-international
[^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. 14, "Abu Dhabi: BCCI's Founding and Majority Stockholders" (citing testimony of Brian Smouha and Michael Crystal, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 5). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/14abudhabi.htm
[^3]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* Appendices. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/24appendic.htm
[^4]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 4, "BCCI's Criminality." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm
[^5]: Kerry and Brown, *The BCCI Affair,* ch. 11, "BCCI, the CIA and Foreign Intelligence," note 98. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
[^6]: *Three Rivers District Council and Others v. The Governor and Company of the Bank of England* [2006] EWHC 816 (Comm), judgment of Mr Justice Tomlinson, April 12, 2006. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2006/816.html (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260203100053/https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2006/816.html)

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---
category: "Private Organization"
tags:
- Organization
- FinancialInstitution
- Pakistan
- BCCI
- Nationalization
alias:
- United Bank
- UBL
summary: "Pakistani bank founded by Agha Hasan Abedi in 1959, nationalized under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974, and sold in 2002 to the Abu Dhabi Group and Bestway."
start: 1959
location: "Pakistan"
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Agha Hasan Abedi]]"
reverse: true
role: "president and chairman"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[I. I. Chundrigar]]"
reverse: true
role: "chairman of the board"
start: 1959
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Saigol family]]"
reverse: true
role: "principal shareholders"
fn: 1
- type: owned
with: "[[Pakistan]]"
reverse: true
role: "nationalized under the Banks (Nationalization) Act, 1974"
start: 1974-01-01
fn: 2
- type: owned
with: "[[Abu Dhabi Group]]"
reverse: true
role: "51 percent, jointly with Bestway Holdings"
start: 2002-09
fn: 3
- type: owned
with: "[[Bestway Holdings]]"
reverse: true
role: "51 percent, jointly with the Abu Dhabi Group"
start: 2002-09
fn: 3
---
United Bank Limited is a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] commercial bank founded by [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], who built it into the second largest bank in Pakistan before founding the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in 1972. The government of [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]] nationalized it under the Banks (Nationalization) Act, 1974, and in 2002 the government sold a controlling stake to the [[Abu Dhabi Group]] and Bestway Holdings.[^1][^2][^3]
### Founding
A 1982 internal BCCI history by Khusro Karamat Elley recorded that "in 1958 he left Habib Bank and was able to get together Investors to form a new bank to be known as United Bank," and that the central bank, which licensed it, "was quite happy with Mr. Abedi's statements that he wanted to make this the largest bank in Pakistan." The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] dated its formation to 1959. According to Elley, "within ten years, United Bank became the second largest bank in Pakistan," with branches overseas "in quite a few countries including the Middle East."[^1]
When the bank was formed, Abedi appointed as chairman of its board [[I. I. Chundrigar]], a former prime minister of Pakistan and a close confidant of [[Ayub Khan]], and he later hired Ayub Khan's minister of information as "publisher" of a BCCI promotional magazine, *South*.[^1] Abedi had secured the account of the [[Saigol family]], one of Pakistan's leading industrial groups, at [[Habib Bank]], and took it with him to United Bank, "making the Saigol's United's principal shareholders." [[Price Waterhouse]] later attributed the family's loyalty to "Abedi's willingness to reschedule millions in loans to the Saigols whenever they found it inconvenient to repay them." The report found that through such relationships Abedi built United Bank into the second largest bank in the country, "complete with a protocol department responsible for taking care of the personal needs of VIPs," and that he served as its founder, president and chairman.[^1]
### Abu Dhabi
By one account, reported by Najam Sethi in *[[The Wall Street Journal]]*, Abedi flew to [[Abu Dhabi]] in 1966 with one assistant and an oriental rug to seek the right to take deposits from the Pakistani workers employed there, and obtained Sheikh [[Zayed bin Sultan AL-Nahayan|Zayed]]'s permission for United Bank to open a branch. By a second account, from Kochan and Whittington's *Bankrupt: The BCCI Fraud*, Abedi won over Zayed by arranging his first bustard hunting and falconry trip in Pakistan, waiting outside the government guest house while the Sheikh napped. By 1967, according to the Senate report, Abedi was running the Sheikh's financial life.[^1]
The report also found that BCCI's handling of prostitution for the Al-Nahyan family "was carried over from practices originally instituted by Abedi at the United Bank," working with Begum Asghari Rahim, and that BCCI's protocol department operated "first at the United Bank and later at BCCI."[^1][^4]
### Nationalization
According to the Senate report, from the time Bhutto took power he threatened to nationalize the banks, and when he learned that Abedi had begun forming BCCI outside Pakistan, "he not only went ahead with plans for nationalizing the United Bank, but promptly placed Abedi under house arrest."[^1] The Banks (Nationalization) Act, 1974 (Act XIX of 1974), "shall be deemed to have taken effect on the 1st day of January, 1974," and overrode any contrary law, contract or articles of association. Its schedule of fourteen nationalized banks listed United Bank Limited as item ten, with Habib Bank, the [[National Bank of Pakistan]] and [[Muslim Commercial Bank]].[^2] The Senate report found that nationalization supplied BCCI with "a group of like-minded Pakistanis to operate the bank."[^1]
### Privatization
On September 5, 2002, the Abu Dhabi Group and Bestway Holdings bought a 51 percent stake in the state-run bank for 12.35 billion rupees (208 million dollars), as the only bidders in the final stage of an auction held by the government's Privatisation Commission; Muslim Commercial Bank and Union Bank, which had taken part earlier, made no new offers. The government had rejected the Abu Dhabi Group's earlier offer of 12.30 billion rupees. Reuters described United Bank as Pakistan's fourth-largest bank, with 1,101 branches and a nine percent market share; non-performing loans stood at 13 to 14 percent of its 88 billion rupees in loans on December 31, 2001, after government injections of 29 billion rupees over three years. Privatisation Minister Altaf Saleem said the process had yielded 350 million rupees more than Muslim Commercial Bank's earlier offer of 12 billion rupees. Pervez Shahid, the Abu Dhabi Group's executive in charge, said: "We believe it's a profitable business." The group also owned a small commercial bank in Pakistan, [[Bank Alfalah|Alfalah Bank]].[^3]
### 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. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI" (citing Khusro Karamat Elley, "Growth of International Banking: Case Study of Bank of Credit and Commerce Intl," October 27, 1982, Senate Document 385; testimony of Masihur Rahman, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 1, pp. 489-491, 540; Price Waterhouse reports to BCCI on "Problem Loans," February 14, 1990; Najam Sethi, "BCCI Founder: These Things Happen," *Wall Street Journal*, July 29, 1991; and Kochan and Whittington, *Bankrupt: The BCCI Fraud*, p. 23). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm
[^2]: The Banks' (Nationalization) Act, 1974 (Act XIX of 1974), sections 1 and 2 and Schedule. http://nasirlawsite.com/laws/bna.htm
[^3]: "Abu Dhabi Group buys United Bank," Reuters, *Gulf News*, September 6, 2002. https://gulfnews.com/uae/abu-dhabi-group-buys-united-bank-1.397971
[^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. 4, "BCCI's Criminality," section "Prostitution." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/04crime.htm