Gabe Newell

In a November 2023 deposition in Wolfire Games v. Valve -- an antitrust suit alleging Valve enforces an undisclosed policy punishing developers who price games lower on rival storefronts -- Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell repeatedly denied under oath that Valve has a policy or practice of dictating third-party prices, at times repeating the denial nearly verbatim when shown internal Valve communications that appeared to describe such enforcement. When pressed on a hypothetical enforcement scenario he deflected ('I'm confused by your question'), and when shown a specific internal communication inconsistent with his testimony he said he 'would not have sent this paragraph' without explaining its existence. He also disputed that Valve holds a monopoly, saying customers have 'enormous choice' among Steam, Xbox, Epic Games Store and direct purchases. Bloomberg's June 2026 review of the unsealed deposition transcript described the pattern of denials as notable given the contradicting internal documents.

On April 23, 2018, Gabe Newell donated $20,008,279 to OpenAI, then a nonprofit dedicated to safe AI development, making him one of its largest individual donors during 2016-2020 (behind Elon Musk). Internal OpenAI emails later disclosed in the Musk v. Altman litigation show Newell was, from early 2018, the sole member of OpenAI's 'informal advisory board,' a role Elon Musk personally approved ('Gabe... two thumbs up from me'). OpenAI publicly listed Newell among its supporters in February 2018.