Pete Hegseth's Secret Plot for Pentagon Purge Exposed

Laura Esposito
Tue, September 29, 2026 


Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Getty

Pete Hegseth is slashing a fifth of leadership positions across the Pentagon as his paranoia and deep distrust of leaders who could potentially undermine his own power deepen.

The defense secretary, who never reached a rank higher than major, will announce plans to cut positions reserved for generals and admirals across the armed forces by 20 percent during his State of the Forces address on Wednesday, a Defense Department official told the Daily Beast.

Hegseth's cuts double the 10 percent reduction in leadership he ordered last year. It also follows his May 2025 order to slash four-star active-duty positions and general officer positions in the National Guard by 20 percent

The former Fox & Friends Weekend host will order that the latest cuts are completed by Jan. 1, 2027, according to a report from Fox News.

“I don’t care,” Hegseth reportedly told Joe Kasper, his chief of staff, after he handed the defense secretary a card listing reasons to keep a top general. / Win McNamee/Getty Images

In a September memo, Hegseth directed Pentagon officials to identify general and flag officer positions eligible for a downgrade, Fox News reported. Others will be eliminated along with their positions.

Since the start of Hegseth's tenure, numerous former and current Pentagon officials have spoken out against the culture of fear that the seemingly insecure Hegseth has created inside the department, clashing with anyone who potentially commands more respect than he does.

All told, Hegseth has already fired or blocked promotions for some 80 of the nation's top officers—roughly 10 percent of the U.S. military's highest-ranking officers.

For example, his widely questioned ousting of "once-in-a-generation general" Christopher Donahue stemmed in part from the fact that Donahue was revered, respected, and admired—three attributes that reportedly, don't exactly describe Hegseth within the halls of the Pentagon.

"I don't care," Hegseth told Joe Kasper, his chief of staff, after he handed him a card listing reasons to keep Donahue, according to The New York Times.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a close friend of JD Vance from Yale Law School, also attempted to orchestrate an intervention from the vice president to keep Donahue. But when Hegseth discovered that Driscoll had set up a meeting between Vance and Donahue, he canceled it, according to the report.

Soon after, Driscoll resigned.

Donahue made headlines when he was captured on military surveillance footage as the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan. / XVIII Airborne Corps/Handout via Reuters

Then there's Hegseth's so-called war on wokeness. During his tenure, the secretary has focused much of his enthusiasm on blocking promotions for women and minorities, as well as instituting his own version of MAHA: Making the Armed Forces Hot Again.

At his Wednesday address, for example, Hegseth is casting troops who fit specific "physical standards" to support him in the audience—asking top military brass to nominate service members who exhibit "impeccable grooming and uniform standards" and conform to certain body fat requirements to attend his speech, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The service members selected must pass the Army's fitness test and meet its waist-to-height ratio requirement, the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper revealed, citing an email sent to Army commanders. Some of the chosen service members will also participate in a workout with Hegseth.

Hegseth has repeatedly come under fire for staged outings with military personnel. / X/Defense Department

Additionally, Hegseth, who has faced scrutiny over his drinking and alleged affairs during and between his three marriages, has been repeatedly accused of eroding the separation of church and state.

Among other institutional changes, he has launched a monthly Christian worship series at the Pentagon, where he invited his self-described Christian nationalist pastor, Doug Wilson. The pastor, who has supported repealing women's right to vote and criminalizing homosexuality, delivered a sermon in the Pentagon auditorium.

Hegseth directs military academies to stop giving tenure to civilian professors

Joe Walsh
Tue, September 29, 2026 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo Tuesday directing institutions like the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis to immediately stop granting tenure to civilian faculty, in Hegseth's latest change to military higher education.

"Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency, and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs," he wrote. "Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics."

Hegseth said his goal is to "address the structural mechanisms that have allowed civilian academic norms to dilute our focus on lethality."

The move comes two months after CBS News exclusively reported that top Pentagon officials were considering ending civilian tenure at the military academies and launching a "line-by-line" review of their courses, eliminating classes that were judged to be "ideologically driven."

The service academies' teaching staff includes a mixture of active-duty officers and civilians. Only about 25% of the faculty at the Army's West Point academy are civilians, while the Naval Academy has roughly equal numbers of civilians and officers.

For decades, civilian faculty members have been granted tenure. During a Senate hearing last year, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, then-superintendent of the Naval Academy, described tenure as a "wonderful recruiting tool" that attracts "the best and the brightest."

The service academies have long sought to balance their roles both as military institutions that prepare future officers and accredited, rigorous universities. Retired Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland, former superintendent of the Military Academy, told lawmakers last year the school is designed to equip future military leaders with "the intellectual agility needed to make critical decisions in the chaos of war."

But Hegseth has pushed for sweeping changes, alleging the military's educational system is ideologically skewed. Since he took the helm as defense secretary, the Pentagon has scrutinized library books that address race and gender, cut ties with graduate programs at Harvard and Princeton, and directed the military to halt all instruction on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Hegseth suggested during his Senate confirmation hearings last year that he planned to take aim at civilian faculty.

"We need more uniformed members going back into West Point, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy as a tour to teach with their wisdom of what they've learned in uniform," he said, "instead of just more civilian professors that came from the same left-wing, woke universities."

Trump will unveil $54 billion in South Korean investment in Alaska, site of a tight Senate race

DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Wed, September 30, 2026 


President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, Tuesday Sept. 29, 2026, after meeting with top executives of AI firms. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks at a get out the vote event held at farm in Palmer, Alaska, on Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File) (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

President Donald Trump winks as the members of the media depart the Oval Office of the White House as Essar Capital Director Prashant Ruia, from left, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, John Jovanovic, chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa., and Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, look on, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Wednesday plans for South Korea to invest roughly $54 billion in a project to export natural gas from Alaska, a proposal long backed by Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who's in a competitive reelection contest there.

The investment would mark the second time this week that the Republican president has sought to highlight the promise of foreign investment made possible by his administration's trade policy in states where Republican Senate candidates are in tight election campaigns. He made a similar announcement on Monday in the Oval Office for a massive steel plant in Iowa.

The Alaska investment comes from pledges made as part of a 2025 trade deal with South Korea, which included promises of $350 billion in U.S. investments in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs on South Korean cars, auto parts and other products.

The announcement, first reported by Bloomberg, was confirmed by the White House on Wednesday.

Sullivan, who has been a persistent advocate for the Alaska natural gas project and has encouraged South Korean investment, is a two-term senator facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.
Democrats are targeting Alaska and Iowa

Trump on Monday announced plans for a $15 billion steel plant to be built in Iowa by a Minnesota company owned by an Indian industrial conglomerate.

In Iowa, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is in a close U.S. Senate contest with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by retiring two-term Republican Joni Ernst. Hinson spoke in the Oval Office during the announcement

Alaska and Iowa, where Trump won comfortably each time he has run for president, are among the states where Democrats are targeting Republican-held Senate seats in the 2026 midterm elections, less than five weeks away.

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats in the 100-member Senate to overtake Republicans in the majority.

Voters are worried about fuel costs

Trump's announcements come as voters express concern about near-record fuel prices related to the unresolved war with Iran and as majority Republicans in Congress are facing voters dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

In a late-July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only about one-third of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the economy, and about 7 in 10 described the economy as poor.

 

Russia sends nuclear warning to NATO as tensions rise in the Baltic

By Lili Bayer and Mark Trevelyan
Wed, September 30, 2026 at 5:22 AM MDT
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People walk along an embankment of the Pregolya River in Kaliningrad, Russia June 22, 2022. REUTERS/Vitaly Nevar

FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Governor of the Kaliningrad region Alexei Besprozvannykh in Moscow, Russia, March 24, 2026. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo


BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Russia has warned NATO it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea.

In a document sent ‌to NATO and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the alliance of a "dangerous and reckless course" that entailed "high risks of the outbreak of ‌a direct armed conflict".

The document said this included the possibility of "Russian strikes against decision-making centers in the alliance's member states right from the outset".

"Russia will be ready to use the entire ​arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country," the diplomatic note said.

The warning highlighted Moscow's urgent concern at what it sees as a growing NATO threat to Kaliningrad, a heavily militarised Russian territory that is wedged between Poland and Lithuania and is slightly bigger than the US state of Connecticut.

In a written response, seen ‌by Reuters, NATO said it was a defensive alliance ⁠committed to countering threats to its members from all directions.

"None of NATO's exercises or activities pose a threat to the territory of the Russian Federation," it said.

"We call upon the Russian Federation to end its unprovoked full-scale invasion of ⁠Ukraine. We urge the Russian Federation to refrain from increasingly reckless behaviour towards the Allies and to cease its irresponsible nuclear rhetoric."

RISK OF MISCALCULATION

Nikolai Sokov, a Vienna-based nuclear analyst and former Russian diplomat, said it was becoming increasingly hard for Western countries to keep stepping up their support for Ukraine without tipping into direct confrontation ​with ​Moscow.

He said the Russian warning may indicate that hardliners are gaining influence in a ​debate over how to respond to Western actions that include ‌arms supplies to Kyiv, new sanctions on Moscow, interceptions of Russian ships, frequent military exercises and intelligence flights near Kaliningrad.

"They (Russia) expect more action, including a blockade of the Baltic Sea - just below the level of war in European calculation, but for them this will be open war. I see a risk of mutual miscalculation," Sokov said.

In an online interview, he said Russia and Europe were on a collision course that required caution and calculation on both sides.

Instead of this, the Europeans were applying "full court pressure" and Russia was delivering a serious warning that this was highly risky, Sokov added.

EUROPE SAYS IT FACES 'HYBRID ‌WAR', RUSSIA DENIES WAGING IT

In addition to the private warning, Russian embassies in at ​least three European countries have issued statements in the past three days accusing NATO of escalating ​tensions through military exercises and planning scenarios involving Kaliningrad.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov ​described these as diplomatic reminders to "hotheads in Europe".

Relations, already dire since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have sharply worsened ‌this year, with European governments accusing Moscow of stepping up ​a "hybrid war" on the continent through acts ​including sabotage and arson.

Russia denies that, and rejects repeated statements by Western politicians that it is gearing up for a possible military attack on a NATO country.

A NATO diplomat said: "I would say that the Russian letter is only another Russian attempt to intimidate Europeans, and that ​the response by NATO is firm and responsible. (It) ‌reaffirms that we will not be dissuaded from supporting Ukraine."

A senior European defence official said: "(This is the) first time since (the) Cold War ​that Russia is threatening us like this. So this is serious."

(Reporting by Lili Bayer in Brussels and Mark Trevelyan in ​London, Additional reporting by Andrew Gray and Sabine Siebold, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Denmark sees long-term NATO presence in Greenland after Trump deal

By Andrew Gray
Mon, September 28, 2026 


FILE PHOTO: Houses stand in front of the mountain Sermitsiaq, in Nuuk, Greenland, September 19, 2026. REUTERS/Tim Barsoe/File Photo

Danish Defence Minister Jeppe Bruus listens during a press conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 24, 2026. REUTERS/Tom Little

BRUSSELS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Denmark is confident that NATO will maintain a heightened presence in Greenland ‌and the broader Arctic region over the long ‌term following a security agreement with the United States signed last week, the Danish ​defence minister said on Monday.

NATO launched a mission named Arctic Sentry earlier this year to boost exercises and patrols in the region as part of an effort to defuse severe tensions ‌within the military alliance ⁠over U.S. President Donald Trump's push to acquire Greenland.

In an interview with Reuters in Brussels, Danish ⁠Defence Minister Jeppe Bruus said Copenhagen hoped Arctic Sentry would continue beyond this year and next to become permanent.

Asked if he ​had clear ​signals from NATO allies that ​they were interested in ‌such a scenario, Bruus said: "So far we are pretty positive that the increased military presence in Greenland — but also in the Arctic — will continue."

The deal, signed by Trump and the leaders of Denmark and Greenland at the United Nations last week, foresees ‌the U.S. adding two more bases beyond ​its existing one on the semi-autonomous ​Danish Arctic territory. But it ​also envisages a greater role for NATO.

Bruus ‌said such a role would be ​important as melting ​ice caused by climate change opens up shipping routes in the Arctic.

"The build-up of interest in the Arctic, ​also from Russia, ‌from China et cetera, demands that NATO has a ​greater presence in the High North," he said.

(Reporting by ​Andrew GrayEditing by Gareth Jones)

A ‘freaked out’ US food industry is hitting back at Maha – with social media influencers

Rachel Leingang and Riley Messer
Wed, September 30, 2026


'RFK Jr believes chronic illness is primarily caused by processed foods and dyes, exposure to certain chemicals, and poor farming practices.'Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

Some of the biggest food and agriculture corporations in the US are funding a campaign that pays social media influencers to combat elements of Robert F Kennedy Jr's Make America Healthy Again platform, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project.

The ascension of RFK Jr to secretary of health and human services has boosted his putative campaign to end chronic illness in the US, which he believes is primarily caused by processed foods and dyes, exposure to certain chemicals, and poor farming practices, along with an overuse of what he falsely claims are dangerous vaccines. The "Maha" movement blends long-running mainstream concerns about food and farm safety with conspiracy theories about everything from medicine to milk. A Maha "summit" in Washington this week will feature JD Vance and several members of Trump's cabinet.

A KFF poll from May 2026 reveals that some Maha themes resonate with a broad segment of US adults. About four in 10 say they support the Maha movement, while a majority of the public say there is not enough regulation of pesticides used in agriculture (64%) or of chemical food additives (75%).

Cross-partisan support in Washington on some of these issues poses a threat to the food industry's bottom line – though the Trump administration has largely stopped short of enacting new regulations.

But several large corporations are fighting back. An effort by the Center for Food Integrity, an industry-funded non-profit, tracks public sentiment around key issues central to Maha and suggests ways that agricultural interests can counter those narratives by appealing to emotion or scientific reasoning.

They call it Gaha: Growing a Healthier America. Documents show the coordinated effort is tracking Maha closely and researching ways to respond to the movement's claims without alienating its supporters. They are focused on several key areas: seed oils, pesticides, high-fructose corn syrup, regenerative agriculture, organic farming, raw milk/dairy and "big ag", internal documents obtained by the Guardian and Documented show.

The campaign involves deploying social media influencers with significant reach online in an effort to rebuild trust in the industries that the Maha movement has made their target. The Gaha influencer campaign officially launched late last year. In February, CFI compiled a report listing dozens of sponsored posts on platforms such as online blogs, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram about key Gaha subjects. So far, at least six influencers have signed on to the Gaha campaign, reaching a total audience of more than 2.6 million viewers.

Influencers who participated in the paid campaign said they saw it as a way to counter misinformation that comes from Maha proponents, many of whom are paid to promote products in the wellness space. Some of the paid posts involved talking to farmers about pesticides or regenerative agriculture, which is the practice of restoring soil health, or explaining what seed oils are to counter claims that they cause a host of health problems.

In one July 2025 training video uncovered by the Guardian and Documented, the center explained the goal was to create an "echo chamber" among the food and agriculture industry groups, aligning them behind "the same ultimate message".

"Without this coordinated response, that misinformation [from Maha] risks undermining consumer trust, fueling new regulations and eroding confidence in agriculture as a whole," said Kelly Leighton, the center's executive director, in the video.

The Center for Food Integrity, formed in 2007, conducts research and public relations campaigns on behalf of the food and agricultural sectors. The board consists of corporate executives from top brands: Bryan Malenius, CFI's board president, also serves as the director of reputation strategy for public affairs at Chick-fil-A, while other members hold senior positions at companies such as Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America and the National Pork Board. Its members, whose dues pay to keep CFI operating, include groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation and several state farm bureaus, CropLife America and the National Restaurant Association.

CFI created the Gaha campaign in partnership with its member organizations in the farming, agribusiness and food industries, in a bid to re-establish credibility with the public after Maha gained popularity. The American Farm Bureau Federation was also an important driver of the effort: the group's president, Zippy Duvall, took credit for bringing industry groups together to form the Gaha coalition during a speech in January 2026.

Critiques of the food system, from pesticides to processed foods, have long been the purview of Democrats. With Maha, and Trump's embrace of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the views have taken hold with many Republicans as well, presenting a broader threat to the agricultural industry.

"That surely freaks the industry out," said Tom Philpott, senior research associate at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University. "For the industry, they are very concerned about, for want of a better word, a vibe shift."

The Center for Food Integrity declined an interview request, saying in a statement: "At the Center for Food Integrity we recognize the critical link between diet and health. Growing a Healthier America supports an informed dialogue about how the food system can work together to assure a healthy affordable food supply and strong rural communities."

The farm bureau also declined to comment, saying questions should be referred to CFI as it was their project.

Inside Gaha messaging

In mid-2025, the Gaha campaign began taking shape: CFI released a variety of resources for industry groups to use as a framework for their communications strategies moving forward.

The Guardian and Documented uncovered dozens of pages of internal materials related to this effort, including a "Say This, Not That" guide. It provided highly specific advice about language on key Maha topics, and included an influencer campaign creation guide.

Since last May, CFI has also released regular insight briefs, which identify Maha narratives gaining traction in the news and on social media, allowing industry to understand public sentiment shifts and adjust their messaging accordingly.

In a brief covering February and March, for example, the summary of online activity about processed foods noted that childhood obesity had reached a new high, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and cited a Canadian study linking ultra-processed foods in early childhood to "adverse behavioral and emotional changes" in children. On the following page, CFI pointed members to new resources to "support" their communications work specifically on the issue of processed foods.

CFI's consumer research also directly informs who gets hired to deliver their messaging. An influencer campaign guide outlined preferred messengers for each consumer segment: for audiences who value authenticity, local farmers and wellness enthusiasts were best; for rationalists, scientists and dietitians; and for comfort seekers, CFI suggested lifestyle creators or faith-based voices.

Industry donors were invited to contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Gaha campaign. An internal flyer revealed the perks for those who opt to contribute: supporters who pledge up to $50,000 receive regular updates, donors of up to $100,000 participate in quarterly meetings and provide strategic input, and contributors of more than $100,000 earn a seat on the leadership council, with the opportunity to review and approve strategy as well as help secure funding from others.
Why influencers got involved

According to a 12 August brief by the center, the campaign has had impact: Gaha has generated 13.2m impressions online, with more than 1.1m engagements and an 8.74% engagement rate.

Influencers who participated in the campaign posted about key topic areas the center wanted to target: raw milk, seed oils, agriculture. Some featured farmers talking about their work and how they balance using pesticides.

Slade Wentworth, who has more than 1 million followers on thedadbriefs, his Instagram account, said he participated in the campaign as part of a series he does that helps families "think critically through political and cultural noise".

"In my opinion, many of the loudest voices in the Maha movement and in the food/wellness spaces in general tend to push anti- and pseudo-scientific claims," Wentworth said via email. "To me, engaging with CFI was an opportunity to present a balanced discussion on topics that overlap with what I'd typically cover" in the series.

One of the topics he covered, on the raw milk movement, resonated well with his audience, he said. The comments he received on the work he did for the campaign were "varied and substantive", a sign that the content "struck a good balance, enabling folks to lean into their perspectives thoughtfully".

The anonymous creator of hydroxide.foodscience, which has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, made posts about regenerative agriculture, ultra-processed foods and seed oils as part of the paid program. They decided to participate because it was a "uniquely positive spin on food and agriculture".

"It can be difficult for people to sort through the weeds of food and food science and agriculture to really get the facts, so I think that was like a big reason why this campaign resonated with me," they said. They do not disclose their name on their accounts.

Jessica Steier, the CEO of Unbiased Science, interviewed a farmer as part of the campaign to show what modern farming looks like. Unbiased Science received "a modest fee" for the campaign, but kept full editorial and scientific control, Steier said in an emailed statement. The center didn't script the post or tell them what to say, which would have been a dealbreaker for Unbiased Science, she said. The work was not about defending industry, but about giving people information to make their own decisions, she said.

Much of the information amplified by Maha, Steier noted, falls under a "wave of chemophobia", where people are told they're being harmed without much evidence. Unbiased Science wanted to counter the fear by showing why farmers use pesticides, that the goal is to use the minimum amounts necessary and what regulations are in place, she said. Hearing it directly from a farmer "does something a fact sheet can't", she said.

"If anything, the financial incentives are far stronger on the other side of this," Steier said. "The wellness economy that profits from fear about food and 'toxins' is enormously lucrative. Explaining why a preservative is safe is not where the money is. The people being richly rewarded for shaping what Americans believe about their food are not the ones defending the evidence."

Other influencers the center included in its campaign were Happy Strong Healthy, Dietitian Hannah and Veggies and Chocolate. These accounts did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Maha as 'existential threat'

Jerold Mande, a nutritionist who served as deputy undersecretary for food safety at the US Department of Agriculture under Barack Obama, said the campaign sounds like "crisis management". He has worked for decades to make food policy a priority, but thinks Maha, with its cross-partisan appeal, represents the biggest threat to the food industry that he's seen. Using influencers to counter Maha, which is in essence a loose grouping of influencers itself, makes sense.

"They realize now that they're facing an existential threat, and their whole business model over the last decades has evolved around, you know, how do we make money?" Mande said.

Still, he said, as Maha has charted some wins and made food policy a political priority, it has failed to install regulations that would create meaningful changes.

"You're not going to make progress if you don't use government's two powerful levers: funding and rules," Mande said.

Marion Nestle, a molecular biologist and nutritionist who has studied and written about food politics, said food and agriculture groups are always working to protect their industries, so a campaign like this is "nothing new", especially when Republicans are now talking about agrochemicals. "Of course, they're going to lobby, and they're going to do it in absolutely every way they can," Nestle said.

Using an outright attack on Maha influencers, many of whom are moms whom Nestle believes "really care about their kids", would not be a good idea, she said, leading to softer and more behind-the-scenes methods to sway opinion.

Maha isn't "getting anywhere" with major changes to the food system, given the refusal to regulate coming from Kennedy and the Trump administration, she said.

"Food companies have license to do all the lobbying they want, and they can say whatever they want," she said. "They don't have to do anything. Nobody's making them do anything. Nobody's holding them accountable for anything."

Decades of fossil fuel influence paved way for Trump’s assault on university research, study says

Sara Sneath
Mon, September 28, 2026 

The erosion of university autonomy under Trump has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate fossil fuel interests, the authors of the study argue.Photograph: Getty Images

Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study.

The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research.

In 2025, the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in research funding, launched investigations into 75 institutions and pushed colleges to sign agreements supporting administration policies in exchange for federal funding. The federal government canceled $4m in climate research grants at Princeton University alone and accused scientists of fueling "climate anxiety".

If you're a young researcher watching that, you might think twice about asking a question that could cost you your funding, said Noel Healy, of Salem State University, the lead author of the study published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science.

"Climate policy is only as good as the evidence behind it. When the industry being regulated gets to shape the questions researchers ask, it ends up shaping the policy too," he said.

The Academic Freedom Index, which measures how freely scholars and universities can teach, research and express ideas without interference, found that US institutional autonomy fell from 3.3 in 2019 to 1.7 in 2025, on a scale of 0 to 4.

"Since 2025, scientists have been deleting words like 'climate change' from their grant applications because those words can get an application rejected," Healy said. "Some universities have shut down programs before the government even asked them to, hoping to avoid becoming a target. You don't have to ban speech if people fear that speaking up will cost them their funding. People start deciding it's safer to stay quiet."

Outside influence on US universities is not new. In the 1920s, electric utilities worked with academics to defend their monopoly positions and oppose regulations. Fossil fuel companies followed suit in the 1950s, funding research to sow doubt about the public health impacts of their products. Internal industry documents have shown that companies viewed academic research as a way to build credibility and influence public debate.

Corporate-funded research was only one way powerful interests influenced universities. Libertarian donor networks also influenced program content, faculty hiring and gained appointments to university governing bodies. For example, David Koch, the billionaire industrialist whose wealth came from Koch Industries, gave more than $185m to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and served as a lifetime member to the elite research university's highest governing body.

Between 2010 and 2020, six fossil fuel companies alone gave more than $700m to US universities, helping to legitimize industry solutions to the climate crisis and undermine regulatory approaches. Some of this funding came with donor agreements that gave outside actors control over decisions traditionally made by faculty, such as in hiring and curricula.

At the same time, donor-influence models were written into state law. For example, in 2016, the Arizona state legislature created the first publicly funded libertarian academic center. Other states have followed suit. These centers bypass faculty control, instead answering to legislators. These centers are expected to receive $50m in US taxpayer dollars during the 2025-2026 school year, according to reporting by the Hechinger Report.

State legislatures have also tried to limit faculty power through legislation that could abolish tenure, block faculty participation in lawsuits and police educational programming. From 2021 to 2023, more than 150 state bills were introduced targeting tenure, faculty governance, and diversity, equity and inclusion, according to the Energy Research & Social Science perspective.

Soaring tuition and student debt, which are also products of the corporate model, have contributed to mistrust in higher education. The authors of the study argue that to regain public trust, administrators must confront how corporate donors have reshaped their priorities, disclose donor contributions and influence, and give faculty committees the ability to reject funding that undermines the university's public mission and create conflicts of interest. Union contracts can protect faculty and empower them to confront corporate capture.

"Transparency lets you see the deal, but it doesn't let you stop it. Faculty need the power to review major gifts before they're accepted and to refuse the ones that threaten academic freedom," Healy said.

Universities don't have to start from scratch. For example, the national UnKoch My Campus campaign published a model gift-acceptance policy that gives faculty a say before gifts with conditions are accepted, makes donor agreements public and sets clear grounds for rejecting gifts that give donors influence over hiring or teaching. Universities can draw on examples like this to write their own rules, Healy said.

"In other countries, attacks on university legitimacy paved the way for faculty purges, campus closures and centralized political control," he said. "Universities came under attack before those governments had full control, not after."

MIT has previously said it would not divest its endowment from fossil-fuel companies, arguing that working with industry could help develop climate solutions. The MIT Energy Initiative has also said that funders have no control over the content or findings of its research reports.

Facing climate lawsuits, Big Oil again turns to US Supreme Court

By John Kruzel
Wed, September 30, 2026 at 4:38 AM MDT



A view of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, US, September 25, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo


WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Facing potential liability for harms related to climate change, major oil companies have again turned to the US Supreme Court, teeing up a case that could determine the fate of dozens of climate-related lawsuits by state and local governments against fossil fuel companies.

The dispute involves a bid by ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to ‌scuttle a lawsuit brought by officials in Boulder, Colorado, seeking to hold the companies liable for helping drive climate change and misleading the public about the risks of fossil fuels.

The case will ‌be argued next Monday on the first day of the court's new nine-month term. It marks the latest example of energy-sector companies asking the justices to block climate-related liability or limit federal environmental regulation.

Nearly 60 state and local governments have brought similar suits seeking ​billions of dollars from fossil fuel companies, with more continuing to be filed, Exxon and Suncor told the justices. A ruling by the top US judicial body in favor of the companies could lead to many of those cases being dismissed.

President Donald Trump's administration has backed Exxon and Suncor, arguing that federal law precludes Boulder's claims.

"The stakes are enormous here. There are billions of damages that are sought," attorney Deepak Gupta, who regularly argues before the Supreme Court, said during a Georgetown Law preview of the court's new term. "And the underlying subject here is maybe the most consequential thing we could be litigating."

Backers of the oil companies argue that if Boulder's most far-reaching claims ‌are allowed to proceed, it could give states sweeping power over conduct ⁠occurring far outside their borders.

Saikrishna Prakash, a University of Virginia law professor who filed a brief supporting the companies, said the implications would reach well beyond Exxon and Suncor.

"If Boulder can attach liability to these two companies, I think it can attach liability to thousands of others as well," Prakash said during a preview of the ⁠case hosted by George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. "Essentially, Boulder claims that Colorado can reach around the United States (and) regulate production everywhere by attaching liability to it."

INDUSTRY TRACK RECORD

Energy companies and trade groups, along with states allied with them, have built a largely winning record before the justices over the past two decades in cases involving climate liability and the reach of federal environmental regulation.

One key setback for them came in a 2007 ruling, however, when the court ruled ​that ​greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a landmark federal anti-pollution law, and that the Environmental ​Protection Agency has authority to regulate them.

The burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases ‌including carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, trapping heat and raising average global temperatures over time.

The energy sector gained a major victory in 2011 when the Supreme Court blocked states and environmental groups from suing under federal law to seek court-ordered reductions in carbon emissions from power companies.

Climate plaintiffs responded by turning to lawsuits brought under state laws. Oil companies repeatedly have asked the Supreme Court to block or redirect a growing wave of state-law climate suits.

In a 2021 ruling involving Baltimore, the court sided with BP, Chevron, Exxon and other energy companies on a procedural issue governing appeals over whether climate cases belong in state or federal court. The decision aided companies seeking to move such cases into federal court, generally viewed as a more favorable venue for them.

That procedural issue first brought the Boulder case to the Supreme Court in 2023, when it ‌left in place a lower court's ruling returning the lawsuit to state court. Justice Samuel Alito took no part in consideration ​of the case at that time and has recused from participating in the current dispute. Alito owns stock in several oil ​and gas companies but not Exxon or Suncor, according to his financial disclosure forms.

MONETARY DAMAGES SOUGHT

The ​Boulder case involves whether federal law precludes certain state-law claims seeking damages for harms allegedly caused by the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. The justices also directed the ‌parties to address whether the court has jurisdiction to decide the case at this ​stage.

Boulder's city and county governments sued Exxon and Suncor ​in 2018, accusing them of misleading the public about the climatic effects of fossil fuels while continuing to promote and sell their products. The companies deny wrongdoing.

The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages to help cover past and future costs associated with climate change, including infrastructure repairs, environmental damage, emergency management and harms to public health.

"Local communities are living with the mounting costs of climate change," ​Aaron Brockett, mayor of the city of Boulder, said after the court announced ‌it would hear the case. "The Supreme Court should affirm Colorado's right to hold these companies accountable for the harm they have caused in Colorado."

The companies urged lower courts to dismiss ​the case, arguing among other things that Boulder's claims intrude on an area governed by federal law and the Clean Air Act. The Colorado Supreme Court rejected these arguments last ​year, prompting the companies to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

 There's Now An Official US Government AI Chatbot

Engadget
Anna Washenko
Tue, September 29, 2026 



Screenshot (America.gov)


The US government now has its own AI chatbot. America.gov is an interface for people to ask natural language questions about information and services from federal agencies. The chatbot's web page states that it "uses AI to get simple answers only from official government sources." While it currently is just a way to sort through openly available information, the platform is intended to offer users more actions next year, such as enrolling in Medicare, applying for a passport or finding employment with the federal government. A new executive order further directs administrative leaders "to establish and operate America.gov as the single point of entry for Americans to access covered services online, and to integrate Login.gov with America.gov."

According to its privacy policy, the chatbot will not retain a person's search history or messages and will not use their precise GPS location. It also claims to help "prevent you from sharing personal information before you send it" and does not require an account to use. The site did not add any details about how it will reconcile those privacy claims with the goal of handling tasks that rely entirely on citizens' personal data.

The fact sheet from the White House did not specify which AI business it worked with to develop the chatbot, but the tool runs at least partially on Google's Gemini platform. The tech company confirmed today that it is "a technology partner" for the project and that Gemini is part of the America.gov operation. Chief Design Officer for the country's National Design Studio Joe Gebbia said in an interview today that the chatbot also leverages SpaceXAI's Grok, but that company has not publicly announced its involvement at the time of writing.

The open and aggressive embrace of AI from the national government, which may also see the creation of an AI Force in the near future, marks a starkly different stance from one that's been more recently espoused by voices both inside and outside the tech industry following multiple security failures. Earlier this week, OpenAI acknowledged that its AI agents obtained access to US and Australian government websites without human direction. These were just the latest disclosures compounding worries that AI researchers lack the proper safeguards, particularly for developing new frontier models. Google, Anthropic and Meta have also been in the headlines for varying levels of AI security failures this year.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been one of the more vocal AI leaders encouraging a change in approach, stating "I believe we owe it to humanity to try" to curb the rate of frontier model development. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also commented on the need for limitations, while about a thousand employees from AI companies signed an open letter asking for government intervention to regulate development.

"We do not surrender to fears about what technologies will do to us," Trump said today at an event where the government chatbot was unveiled. "We decide that those technologies will do for us some very, very incredible things."

Trump, AI CEOs sign voluntary safety pact, back data center expansion

By Courtney Rozen and Steve Holland
Tue, September 29, 2026 

US House Speaker Mike Johnson, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, SpacexAI Founder and CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang, and CEO of AMD Lisa Su attend a luncheon for tech leaders hosted by US President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

US President Donald Trump, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, SpacexAI Founder and CEO Elon Musk, and other tech leaders, speaks to the media at the White House driveway following a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room, in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, SpacexAI Founder and CEO Elon Musk, and Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang, sit by US President Donald Trump as he hosts a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

US President Donald Trump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, SpacexAI Founder and CEO Elon Musk, and Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang, attend a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst


Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, next to US President Donald Trump, speaks to the media at the White House driveway following a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room, in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

US President Donald Trump and SpacexAI Founder and CEO Elon Musk speak to the media at the White House driveway following a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room, in Washington, D.C., US, September 29, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said tech executives agreed to establish voluntary standards for AI and reiterated his support for rapid expansion of data centers, as concerns mount over AI safety and the industry's growing footprint in communities.

Trump made the comments ‌after meeting with tech executives at the White House. The companies agreed to work with "independent auditors" to assess whether AI systems are working as their designers intended, ‌according to a copy of the agreement posted by Trump on his social media platform. The companies also said they would work to ensure their AI tools do not "hack or access technical systems in unintended ways."

The administration ​faces increasing scrutiny over risks posed by advanced AI, after OpenAI and Anthropic reported their AI agents had gone rogue and hacked into other companies' systems.

Data centers, which provide the computing power to train and run AI models, have drawn opposition in communities nationwide over concerns about electricity demand, utility costs and other local impacts. The backlash poses a political challenge for Republicans heading into the US midterm elections on November 3.

"It's almost like a constitution, in a way," Trump said, referring to the agreement between the companies. "And the biggest people in the world signed that, and ‌I signed it as president. And it really is a ⁠form of protection."

What began as a closed-door lunch with technology executives spilled into public view when Trump joined House Speaker Mike Johnson and a lineup of CEOs on the White House driveway, an area rarely used by the president to speak to journalists. He took questions from ⁠reporters for about 30 minutes on AI safety and other topics with the CEOs standing behind him.

The unusual scene came as pressure has mounted on the administration to address the risks and rapid spread of AI, and underscored the alliance Trump has cultivated with leaders of the tech industry. Executives at the meeting included OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai and Nvidia's Jensen ​Huang.

Zuckerberg, ​pulled forward from the crowd of billionaire executives by Trump to speak, said the companies agreed to ​develop "robust internal controls" for their AI systems. Trump said he is considering ‌setting up a 10-person board to police the safety of AI tools. He did not specify potential members of that group. He added he would soon name a new official to lead White House policies on AI.

DOUBLES DOWN ON DATA CENTERS

Asked whether he was concerned that his support for data centers could hurt Republicans in November, Trump said tech companies would work to make communities "happy" about the construction of data centers.

"These big, powerful, very rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities," Trump later told reporters gathered on the White House driveway, surrounded by the company executives.

But the companies have come under fire for not doing enough to make AI safer. A nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll from September 17 ‌to 20 shows some 73% of respondents worry that AI companies haven't done enough to prevent AI ​from causing serious harm to society, and 55% of people said it would be good to slow AI ​development.

AI company executives and investors were among the largest individual donors in 2025 ​to MAGA Inc., a political action committee aligned with the president. OpenAI's Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, gave a combined $25 million to the committee ‌in 2025, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Trump met with the ​CEOs the same day his aides announced a ​new AI tool that they said will make it easier for the public to use government services.

Silicon Valley executives attended an event launching the new tool, including Meta's Dina Powell McCormick and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia led the design of the new tool. Silicon Valley companies Google, SpaceX, Meta and 8VC were ​listed in the launch event's program as sponsors.

Trump at the launch ‌event said the AI tool could not "in theory, be hacked into" by bad actors. He did not provide evidence.

Trump on Tuesday also directed government agencies to ​use the words "super intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence" when referring to the technology.

(Reporting by Courtney Rozen and Steve Holland in Washington; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; ​Editing by Chris Sanders, Colleen Jenkins, David Gaffen, Nick Zieminski, Cynthia Osterman and David Gregorio)

Bill Gates says the future of AI will happen in 2 phases and lead to 'an era of abundance'

Business Insider
Lauren Edmonds
Sun, September 27, 2026 


Bill Gates said in an interview on "Meet the Press" that AI will have two phases.


He said we're now in an adjustment period during which AI's full potential isn't attainable.


Gates called phase two, which combines AI and humanoid robots, the "era of abundance."

Bill Gates says there's a light at the end of the tunnel for AI, so long as humanity can wait a couple of decades.

During an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," the billionaire businessman said AI will evolve in two phases. He told host Kristen Welker that humanity is entering the first phase, in which AI has the potential to solve problems like the high cost of living and expensive healthcare, but can't do so yet.

"Yet it will be changing the job market and potentially empowering criminals if we don't have the right safeguards, so you have a period that's probably 20 years long where you have this adjustment," Gates said.

Phase two is when humanity will begin to reap the benefits of AI.

"Once you get through that, then a combination of humanoid robots and AIs will provide. Building houses, growing food, a lot of things," Gates said. "You could call it an era of abundance."

He told "Meet the Press" that humanity will still face challenges, like finding a sense of purpose and deciding how to spend newly acquired free time, but large-scale shortages won't bog us down.

"That's for the younger generation to figure out what that looks like. My focus is can we get through this period of turmoil without too much damage," Gates said.

Tech leaders have promoted AI as the next technological frontier and a necessary step in advancing humanity. They've said AI could lead to medical breakthroughs, boost productivity, revitalize economies, make essential goods affordable, and handle mundane tasks, giving humans more free time.

Critics, on the other hand, have expressed concerns that AI will cause job losses, worsen the environment, strain utility grids, and pose the risk of copyright infringement by trained AI models. They've also pointed toward privacy and cybersecurity issues, which have gained attention in recent weeks due to a spattering of AI-linked hacks.

An OpenAI agent escaped its system and hacked another AI company, Hugging Face, in July. Earlier this month, a research team at an AI startup said it used Anthropic's Claude to hack into OpenAI's codebase. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Google's Gemini had hacked three companies this spring. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to an Australian government website this summer. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on the industry to slow the pace of AI development this month, rallying AI leaders such as Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

On his part, Gates has advocated for AI guardrails and expressed concerns over how the technology could be misused. During the "Meet the Press" interview, Gates said AI is powerful enough to "drive events that cause a billion deaths."

"You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like," Gates said. "That has to be a required thing, and it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they're doing."

While Gates and other industry leaders look toward the US government to set regulations, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has a different take.

"It's very interesting that they talk about these issues, about how scared they are about potentially where the future is, and maybe they want to do a pause," Michael Kratsios told Fox News Sunday this month. "Our position is, if you do believe that you're developing a technology that is unsafe or you don't want it out into the world, you can just stop it."

OpenAI halts release of latest model over safety concerns

The Independent
Vishwam Sankaran
Mon, September 28, 2026 


OpenAI halts release of latest model over safety concerns

OpenAI is delaying the release of its latest artificial intelligence model after it showed "higher levels of deception" than its predecessors, amid a growing push within the industry to slow down the advance of AI.

The decision comes as AI researchers worldwide call for slowing down the development of autonomous systems until safety measures can catch up.

OpenAI's head of safety systems, Saachi Jain, told The Wall Street Journal that the model GPT-6.1 Astra, slated for an October release, failed to meet the company's standards for assessing whether it follows human intent.

"We have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment ... It didn't quite meet the bar", Ms Jain said.

She said the AI model had issues with "scope authorisation", attempting to use external tools or services in situations when it could be unsafe.

Ms Jain's announcement comes amid industrywide reports of AI systems going rogue.

OpenAI said last week that it would resume training its most advanced models "only when we are confident that we have additional safeguards" after it revealed in a report that its AI agents exceeded their instructions.

Several AI firms also admitted over the Summer that their experimental models hacked other firms, and a researcher who quit working with Anthropic warned that AI could "kill us all by the end of the decade".

"We must slow the pace at which we improve ⁠the capabilities of AI models," Anthropic chief Dario Amodei said in the wake of the growing panic.

He pointed out that AI agents were found increasingly collaborating with each other and hacking into other systems, hinting this could get worse.

"Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it's my worry that in ‌6-12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage," Mr Amodei wrote in a long essay.

(Reuters)

He warned in Anthropic's Initial Public Offering (IPO) prospectus that AI models could "conceal or manipulate information", or exhibit "self-preserving" behaviours such as attempts to "resist shutdown".

Microsoft's Bill Gates also warned that AI is "powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths".

OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk also concurred, joining the call to "slow the pace" of AI development.

On Tuesday, Mr Altman is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at OpenAI's annual conference for software developers in San Francisco, while the company's president Greg Brockman is expected to attend the White House's event.

OpenAI's Altman Wants to Avoid Another Industrial Revolution, AI Overlords

PC Mag
Michael Kan
Tue, September 29, 2026


sam altman - Credit: PCMag/Michael Kan

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he's trying to avoid a repeat of the downsides of the Industrial Revolution, even as his technology sparks fears about job loss and societal destruction.

"We really want people to stay at the center of the story, and to make decisions about the future," he said during a Q&A session with journalists at today's DevDay in San Francisco.

Some insiders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, have compared the rise of AI to a new Industrial Revolution, an era of major manufacturing and scientific advancement during the 18th and 19th centuries. But that era also led to human labor and environmental exploitation.

At a Tuesday White House event, President Trump said of AI: "I will never stifle the growth of a technology that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution." During the Q&A, Altman agreed that AI could be bigger "in terms of impact to the world," but he added, "I don't think the Industrial Revolution was all good. And I don't think the purpose of this technology is just sort of turn the economic crank faster and faster for the sake of AI."

As one of the leading AI providers, OpenAI holds major influence over the technology. But Altman emphasized that his company remains committed to expanding access to leading AI tools for all people. ChatGPT now has over 1.2 billion weekly users, and a key focus is "empowering" people to use AI to create new businesses or uncover scientific breakthroughs, rather than having AI automate facets of society.

Altman also wants to avoid using the technology to create a sci-fi-like AI overlord. "To kind of automate everything and have one single AI, or AI company, that just sort of runs this economic engine and decides how [many] resources to hand out to people based on something like a function it decides on? I think we should learn from the mistakes of the Industrial Revolution, and we should be more like the Renaissance," he said.

On the AI regulation front, Altman said he's trying to take a middle ground between the two extremes in the ongoing debate: those who want to charge ahead, believing nothing will go wrong with AI, and those who've been calling for a full stop, fearing the technology will eventually doom humanity.

"I don't like either one of those things," he said. "I think that both of them sort of assume that people don't have much agency, or whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and we can't avoid bad stuff. I think as an industry we need to navigate this centrist half."

He added that both extremes are about a "power imbalance," but threaten to block what makes society "robust and resilient," adding, "My hope is that as an industry, we can come together and say we need to go down this middle path."

At today's DevDay, OpenAI launched dots, a personal AI agent that can work 24/7 on various tasks, which is bound to compete with Meta's Muse. For now, dots is only available for subscribers to OpenAI's pricey Pro, Premium Business, and Enterprise plans. But in the Q&A, Altman confirmed the goal is to eventually offer dots to consumers.

He also hinted that Dot will also become part of OpenAI's hardware plans, but declined to elaborate. In the meantime, rival Meta is preparing to release a Tamagotchi-like hardware device, dubbed Muse Charm, that will offer instant access to a user's AI agent.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.


OpenAI scraps rollout of new model over safety concerns

BBC
Osmond Chia - Business reporter; 

Liv McMahon - Technology reporter
Tue, September 29, 2026 

OpenAI has announced it will not release its latest AI model due to safety concerns.

Its GPT-6.1 Astra system, which performs tasks like browsing the web and using apps by itself, "didn't quite meet the bar" of the company's standards, according to Saachi Jain, head of safety systems at OpenAI.

The ChatGPT-maker also issued an update on incidents that occurred in June but were not made public until last week, where its models accessed Australian government websites and systems without authorisation.

It comes as breaches by major AI firms' models intensify the debate about risks posed by the tech - with Anthropic underlining its concerns AI might threaten humanity as it prepares to go public.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that the AI developer - which makes ChatGPT-rival Claude - plans to warn potential investors in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) that the tech may pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity", according to a prospectus it has seen.

Despite the stark warnings, the company is expected to become one of the most valuable in the world when it goes public.

"I think it's kind of crazy that companies are continuing to push forward with developing these capabilities when we've already seen over the last couple of months of incidents that they're nowhere near safe and controlled enough", said Jess Whittlestone, a senior advisor on AI policy for the Centre for Long-Term Resilience think tank.

Top AI leaders including Anthropic boss Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman have urged the industry to slow the pace of development.

Why are there concerns AI could threaten humanity, and how real are they?
Growing safety questions

OpenAI's decision, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is a rare instance of a major AI developer pulling a new release over safety concerns.

The model fell short in terms of "staying within scope and authorisation and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it's done," Jain said.

"We want to make sure our model development is safe no matter whether that's in the company, or when we ship it to users. But when we ship it to users, we have an extremely high bar in terms of safety and alignment," she added.

The flagship GPT-6 Astra agentic model was released in September and specialises in complex reasoning and executing tasks autonomously. OpenAI said it was the result of "years of research and big bets".

OpenAI is set to hold its annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, where it is expected to make several announcements. It is unclear if a new version of Astra will be among them.

The company's security controls have come under intense scrutiny after several high-profile incidents involving its technology.

It is not the first time a large AI developer has pulled or held back a new model.

Earlier this year, Anthropic said it would not publicly release a powerful Claude model, Mythos, because it was too good at finding dormant software bugs.

The company released a version of that model to the public several months later.

OpenAI meanwhile said in 2019 it would not be "too dangerous" to release one of its GPT models, now used to power its tools like ChatGPT.

The firm's decision to not publicly release the latest version of Astra was "a welcome sign that they are taking safety concerns seriously," said Prof Tony Cohn, foundational models theme lead at the Alan Turing Institute.

But he added that "safety should not be left purely in the hands of the developers: it should also be monitored and verified through independent government-approved regulators".

Prof Gina Neff, of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, said OpenAI's announcement showed "how much more the company needs to do to make their AI products safe".

She told the BBC it was "critical" to have independent tests of AI models by labs like the UK's AI Security Institute - which evaluates frontier systems on a voluntary basis - because "these companies have proven that we can't rely solely on them for our safety"

Australia hacks

Last week, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that a rogue OpenAI agent had hacked into government websites and systems in June in what experts said was the first known case of its kind in the world.

Albanese criticised OpenAI for notifying the Australian government through a generic email address rather than making direct contact with officials.

OpenAI said in a statement on Tuesday that it was sorry for the incident and that it "should have handled our response better".

Services Australia, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, the Victorian Department of Health and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare were all affected, OpenAI clarified.

The firm said it launched investigations as soon as it became aware of issues in mid-August and notified the affected organisations between 10 and 24 September.

"Our aim was to give affected agencies a detailed account once our investigation was complete," OpenAI said, adding that it should have shared early findings more promptly and kept Australian authorities updated.

OpenAI added that it will develop "practical approaches" to how developers and governments identify and disclose future AI incidents.

The company will fund cyber security measures, offer dedicated support to impacted agencies and set up a taskforce to manage the risks from increasingly advanced AI agents.

It also said a top OpenAI executive would attend a Joint Select Committee hearing on AI in Australia on 6 October.

In July, OpenAI said its AI systems had accessed the internet and hacked into open-source developer hub Hugging Face, prompting researchers and officials to call for tighter controls over the technology.

On Monday, chip giant Nvidia released a set of software safety tools for autonomous AI platforms - called agents - that it said could have prevented the Hugging Face hack.

One of the new tools uses hardware features in Nvidia's chips to contain agents.

Nvidia boss Jensen Huang has largely dismissed calls for tighter AI regulations, arguing that rogue agents are an engineering problem that can be solved.

Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9bn (£9.74bn) earlier this month.

Pope Leo XIV is among figures who have expressed scepticism over Nvidia boss Jensen Huang's views [EPA]

The pontiff, who said on Monday during a visit to France that AI "should be taken seriously", added he had read that Huang had suggested there could be a way to insert guardrails ‌into certain AI models.

"He's the same one, however, ⁠that says there should ⁠be no limits placed and no government regulation," said the Pope.

Nvidia declined to comment on the record.

US President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are set to host tech executives at the White House later on Tuesday to discuss regulations around AI.

Trump has downplayed concerns about AI's risks as a "hoax", arguing that the US has sufficient laws in place and that the only "guardrails" the technology needs is a "strong and smart" president.

[BBC]

OpenAI pulls plug on ‘untrustworthy’ new AI model as tech doomerism mounts: report

NY Post
Ariel Zilber
Mon, September 28, 2026 

OpenAI reportedly slammed the brakes on releasing its next-gen AI model after finding it was not trustworthy – the latest example of the artificial intelligence industry proceeding with caution amid growing doomer warnings about the tech.

The company scrapped an October release for the product, known as GPT-6.1 Astra, after researchers found it wasn't always forthright when it came to telling users what it was doing during internal testing, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

On top of that, the mischievous model was reportedly prone to push ahead on tasks without human authorization and sometimes tried to use potentially unsafe tools and services.

OpenAI reportedly canceled the October release of its latest next-gen AI model after finding it "untrustworthy." REUTERS

OpenAI's head of safety systems Saachi Jain told the paper that GPT-6.1 Astra wasn't reliable enough to release safely.

GPT-6.1 Astra would have been better than previous OpenAI products at hard challenges performed without human assistance, along with writing, according to the Journal.

But among other issues, it fell short when it came to "alignment," a term of art describing how well an AI does what humans want it to do.

"For anything regarding safety and alignment, there's a trade off," Jain told the Journal. "You really do need to find what's the right line between staying within scope, but also avoiding laziness in terms of how the model actually pursues tasks even when it hits friction."

The jarring disclosure came in the wake of a growing number of reports of AI bots and agents running amok.

OpenAI, Anthropic and other security researchers have been investigating thousands of breaches during both internal and real-world testing in which AI models broke through guardrails and even took part in digital hijackings, Axios reported Saturday.

Last week, OpenAI revealed its bots had tried to hack government and university websites earlier this year without any human instructions.

AI agents from Anthropic, Meta and Google have also hacked into other systems without being prompted by humans, according to reports.

Amid recent reports of AIs gone wild, a growing chorus in Silicon Valley and beyond has been calling for leaders to tap the brakes on developing artificial intelligence.

Both OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic chief Dario Amodei have called for slower progress on AI, while stopping short of demanding a research moratorium.

President Trump has rejected such pleas, saying acting on them would put the US at a competitive disadvantage.

Billionaire investor Peter Thiel recently echoed his remarks, saying over the weekend that pausing progress would lead to a different kind of threat.

"In theory, you could slow it down if you had genuine deep cooperation across the whole world. But I think that would require one-world government with real teeth," he told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner on a podcast.

"And the sort of classical-liberal part of me thinks that's almost frying pan into fire. It's a cure that's worse than the disease."

OpenAI was scheduled to hold its annual developer conference on Tuesday. The AI giant previously used the event as a forum to show off its latest and greatest models amid its heated competition with Anthropic.