OpenAI agrees to $3.2 million settlement after feds accuse it of discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of green card seekers

Bay Area artificial intelligence giant OpenAI agreed to pay $3.2 million to resolve federal authorities’ claims that it discriminated against U.S. workers in hiring for software engineering jobs and other positions, while favoring foreign visa holders.

The pioneering San Francisco company, whose ChatGPT chatbot has taken the world by storm since its 2022 launch, denied the government’s allegations, according to the settlement agreement signed Monday and released Tuesday.

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But OpenAI agreed to pay a $1.2 million fine and set aside $2 million to provide “back pay” to any U.S. workers found to have missed out on employment, the agreement said.

“It is illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers by preferring temporary visa holders for jobs,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a former San Francisco lawyer heading the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division.

“This substantial settlement ensures that OpenAI redresses harm and changes its recruitment practices so that U.S. workers receive a fair opportunity for highly sought-after technology positions.”

OpenAI did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday.

Six positions in areas including software engineering and business operations were at issue in the Justice Department’s investigation, the department said. Each job was already held by a visa holder, but because OpenAI was sponsoring them for permanent residence, known as a green card, the company was required to “engage in good faith recruitment of U.S. workers and attest there are no qualified and available U.S. workers for the position,” an unnamed department official said via email Tuesday.

The department alleged that between June 2023 and at least April 2025, OpenAI made U.S. workers apply for the positions by mail, and did not allow them to submit applications via the company’s typical process where people apply online for jobs posted on OpenAI’s employment website.

“In addition, OpenAI took other steps to discourage U.S. workers from applying, such as advertising positions on the radio late at night,” the department claimed in a press release.

The department declined to specify which visas were held by the foreign workers.

The agreement came amid an immigration crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump, but also as Bay Area tech companies have gained unprecedented access to the White House. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly lauded Trump, and personally donated $1 million to the President’s second-term inauguration committee. OpenAI earlier this year signed a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide AI systems to the Pentagon.

The department said in a press release that the settlement amount “reflects the harm to U.S. workers when they are shut out of applying for lucrative technology jobs.”

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The agreement said OpenAI would “only reject U.S. workers for lawful job-related reasons.”

Howard University political science professor Ron Hira, who studies employment visas, said the alleged discrimination has been “common industry practice” for decades.

“One-off settlements such as with OpenAI do nothing to fix the root of the problem,” Hira said. He noted that Menlo Park’s Meta in 2021 signed a $14.25 million settlement with the Justice Department to resolve similar claims, and Cupertino’s Apple in 2023 settled with the department for $25 million over similar allegations.

“Employers collude with their immigration attorneys to hide these jobs,” Hira said.