The Guardian sparked conflict of interest concerns when it launched a series on artificial intelligence in partnership with Omidyar Network, a philanthropic organization that invested in a major AI company.
The series titled “Reworked” launched in February, nearly two years after the Omidyar Network disclosed its investment in AI giant Anthropic in April 2024, sparking media watchdogs to voice concerns over a potential conflict of interest. Omidyar Network was founded in 2024 by eBay co-founder and Democratic megadonor Pierre Omidyar, who has contributed to Democratic presidential campaigns and liberal dark money groups.
In April 2024, the Omidyar Network disclosed that it had purchased nearly 50,000 shares of Anthropic, claiming the company was a leader in AI that put transparency, accountability and safety first. However, Anthropic has drawn safety concerns over its latest Mythos Preview model, which the company only released to roughly 40 businesses out of concerns that the model was rife for hacking.
The series looked at how AI is changing the job market, the economy and power structures worldwide, and was part of The Guardian’s broader coverage of emerging technologies and their impact on society.
Omidyar has been a major donor to Democratic campaigns and initiatives, donating to the 2008 campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, while also sending $45 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a major Democratic dark money hub.
In recent years, The Guardian has published numerous articles on Anthropic and the AI industry as a whole. These articles have covered the company’s technology, partnerships and its place in the changing AI landscape.
When the series launched, it did not initially include a disclosure of the Omidyar Network investment in Anthropic. The website later added the disclaimer, adding,“The Omidyar Network announced in 2024 that it had purchased shares of Anthropic stock. The Guardian’s policies and standards ensure a strict firewall between revenue sources and decisions made by reporters and editors.”
The disclosure failed to mention the size of the investment that was made by The Omidyar Network.
Media watchdogs have sounded the alarm about the potential conflict of interest between Omidyar and The Guardian.
“Failure to disclose unavoidable conflicts of interest, real or perceived, is a clear violation of journalistic ethics,” said Michael Morris, director of Free Speech America at the Media Research Center. “Undisclosed financial ties can raise questions about the independence of coverage, even when outlets maintain editorial safeguards,” Morris added.
“The growing trend of far-left billionaires paying for ‘journalists’ to shape and control narratives should alarm anyone who values integrity in media,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust.
Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit founded by liberal billionaire George Soros, funded the National Trust for Local News, an organization that acquired nearly two dozen local newspapers, although the group denied that the funds were specifically used for the purchases.
“Our series on how AI is transforming work is fully and completely editorially independent from its funding sources,” a spokesperson for The Guardian told the Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that the outlet maintains a “strict firewall between revenue sources and decisions made by reporters and editors.”
The Omidyar Network pointed the DCNF to its public guidance on funding independent journalism and referenced The Guardian’s description of the series, which notes that “all of the journalism is editorially independent, commissioned and produced by our Guardian journalists.”
Republicans and conservative donors have also thrown their support and finances behind AI. In President Donald Trump’s first term, he signed an executive order launching the American AI Initiative, increasing funding and research. Not long after taking office again in January 2025, Trump announced a $500 billion private-sector investment in AI infrastructure.
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