OpenAI hounds AI safety advocate over alleged link to Elon Musk
One Tuesday evening, a man got a knock at the door. A sheriff holding legal documents approached Nathan Calvin of Encode AI. Soon, he realized that he’d received a “warning” from OpenAI’s overlord, Sam Altman.
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One Tuesday evening, a man got a knock at the door. A sheriff holding legal documents approached Nathan Calvin of Encode AI. Soon, he realized that he’d received a “warning” from OpenAI’s overlord, Sam Altman.
OpenAI critic Nathan Calvin reported the incident on Tuesday evening, October 7th, 2025, via X (formerly Twitter).
“One Tuesday night, as my wife and I sat down for dinner, a sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door to serve me a subpoena from OpenAI,” Calvin alleges in his post.
The Encode AI vice president of state affairs said he had “held back on talking about it because (he) didn’t want to distract from SB 53,” a new California law relating to AI regulation.
The post, found by The Verge, details the issues that Encode AI and subsequently Calvin were dealing with.
One Tuesday night, as my wife and I sat down for dinner, a sheriff’s deputy knocked on the door to serve me a subpoena from OpenAI.
undefined Nathan Calvin (@_NathanCalvin) October 10, 2025
I held back on talking about it because I didn't want to distract from SB 53, but Newsom just signed the bill so... here's what happened:
🧵 pic.twitter.com/VnYCJYg2DH
“You might recall a story in the San Francisco Standard that talked about OpenAI retaliating against critics. Among other things, OpenAI asked for all my private communications on SB 53 – a bill that creates new transparency rules and whistleblower protections at large AI companies,” Calvin wrote.
The story published by the SF Standard claims that Calvin was being served due to an ongoing lawsuit between OpenAI and Elon Musk, former co-founder of OpenAI, CEO of Tesla, xAI, and various other big tech companies.
Journalists report that Encode AI had supposedly filed an amicus brief supporting some of Musk’s claims.
The subpoena essentially demanded Calvin turn over all communications regarding Musk’s involvement in founding Encode AI and other communications involving Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding his grand AI talent poaching spree.
This was generally easy for Calvin, as the communications OpenAI was referencing appeared to be conspiracy theories. In essence, these messages didn’t exist.
Journalists seem to suggest that this is a simple intimidation tactic used by big tech billionaires to halt progress surrounding AI regulation.
This is echoed by Calvin who said that the AI policy non-profit he works for has openly “criticized OpenAI’s restructuring and worked on AI regulation, including SB 53.”
“I believe OpenAI used the pretext of their lawsuit against Elon Musk to intimidate their critics and imply that Elon is behind all of them,” Calvin asserted.
Throughout the 15-part post, Calvin continually states that Musk isn’t behind Encode and the employees at the non-profit have never spoken to the Tesla CEO.
What’s startling is that a sheriff’s deputy apparently went to Calvin’s home and asked him to “turn over private texts and emails with California legislators, college students, and former OpenAI employees.”
“This is not normal. OpenAI used an unrelated lawsuit to intimidate advocates of a bill trying to regulate them. While the bill was still being debated,” Calvin said.
Calvin asserts that OpenAI had no legal grounds to ask him for this information. Therefore, the non-profit submitted an objection, saying that it would not be giving away its private data.
“They never replied.”
Calvin made other claims about OpenAI, stating that a magistrate judged “chastised” OpenAI for its behaviour in the discovery process in their case against Musk.
OpenAI even apparently sent the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, a letter to “gut the bill” by “waiving all the requirements for any company that does any evaluation work with the federal government.”
While Calvin sees the good in OpenAI, he also sees it “trying to intimidate critics into silence.”
“Does anyone believe these actions are consistent with OpenAI’s nonprofit mission to ensure that AGI benefits humanity? OpenAI still has time to do better. I hope they do,” the post concludes.
Calvin’s receipts received a lot of attention, garnering 6.2 million views and over 300 comments, with big tech moguls like Musk commenting a simple “!!!” on the post.
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