Undisclosed Conflicts

In November 2025, Meta's board of directors settled a shareholder derivative lawsuit for $190 million. Shareholders alleged that board members failed to properly oversee compliance with a 2012 FTC consent decree on user privacy, and that they improperly agreed to the $5 billion 2019 FTC settlement specifically to shield Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability. The suit highlighted undisclosed conflicts of interest among board members, including allegations that Marc Andreessen provided Zuckerberg strategic advice during board negotiations over a stock restructuring.

Bloomberg reported that more than a dozen people with ties to Peter Thiel and Founders Fund were placed in the Trump administration in 2025. These include Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens (considered for Deputy Secretary of Defense), Anduril executive Colin Carroll (Chief of Staff at DoD), Palantir engineer Clark Minor (CIO at HHS), and David Sacks (White House AI and Crypto Czar). ProPublica reported that GSA fast-tracked a contract process favoring Ramp, a Founders Fund portfolio company invested in across seven rounds. The revolving door between Founders Fund's network and the administration raises conflicts of interest as portfolio companies stand to benefit from government contracts influenced by these appointees.

While serving as an OpenAI board member and claiming to have no financial interest in the company, Sam Altman was listed as the legal owner of the OpenAI Startup Fund. Former board member Helen Toner stated he 'constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company' while concealing this ownership. The arrangement was described by OpenAI as temporary, but Altman did not inform the board. This undisclosed conflict was among the factors that led to his firing in November 2023.

Bolt drafted a letter in Estonia's name to push back against the EU Platform Work Directive, sent via Sandra Särav, a ministry official who failed to disclose owning €30,000+ in Bolt stock options. The lobbying helped mobilize Estonia and other countries against worker protections. Transparency International Estonia said Bolt 'crosses a line' by representing the government's position.

From mid-2023 through 2024, Mistral AI conducted an aggressive lobbying campaign against EU AI Act provisions. The campaign was led by co-founder Cédric O, France's former Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, who joined Mistral in spring 2023 and immediately began lobbying his former government colleagues. O's initial €176 investment grew to approximately €23 million while he lobbied for exemptions that would directly benefit the company - a conflict he did not publicly disclose. Meanwhile, Mistral argued that strict regulation would force European companies to partner with US tech giants, while secretly negotiating a deal with Microsoft that was announced in February 2024. The campaign succeeded: the final AI Act gave broad exemptions to open-source models and general-purpose AI, with only minimal transparency obligations. Fundamental rights checks were removed, and foundation model requirements were significantly weakened.

In November 2022, it was revealed that Masayoshi Son personally owed SoftBank Group Corp $4.7 billion (later rising to $5.1 billion by February 2023) on side deals he had set up to increase his personal compensation while the Vision Fund posted record losses. Son held more than 30% stake in SoftBank and structured these arrangements as 'remuneration for investment expertise' in lieu of investment fees. Governance experts and activist investor Elliott Management criticized this as a clear conflict of interest, but Son denied wrongdoing.

Sam Altman held a personal investment in Rain AI, an AI chip startup, while OpenAI in 2019 signed a non-binding letter of intent to spend $51 million on Rain's chips. This represented a potential conflict of interest where Altman would personally benefit from a deal made by the company he led. The conflict was among the governance concerns raised during the November 2023 board crisis.

Rebellion Defense was founded in 2019 by Chris Lynch, Nicole Camarillo, and Oliver Lewis. Co-founder Nicole Camarillo co-founded Rebellion while still working at the Pentagon, with a pitch deck touting her 'present leadership role in U.S. Army Cyber Command.' Board member Eric Schmidt chaired the National Security Commission on AI (2016-2021) while personally investing over $2 billion in AI startups. Two Rebellion officials served on Biden's transition team, and the company hired White House tech director David Recordon as CTO. Ethics fellow Walter Shaub called Schmidt's dual role 'absolutely a conflict of interest.'