OpenAI to pay $3.2 million to settle hiring discrimination claims

The U.S. Department of Justice announced a $3.2 million agreement with OpenAI and one of its subsidiaries to resolve allegations that the company discriminated against U.S. workers and preferred those holding temporary employment visas. In employment-based immigration, companies typically undergo a Permanent Labor Certification process, advertising job openings to American workers to ensure foreign hires do not displace local candidates.

The DOJ's investigation found OpenAI instead did not list the roles it intended to fill on its external jobs portal. The firm also required applicants to submit paper applications for those specific roles, even though it accepted electronic submissions for other positions, and reportedly aired recruitment ads on the radio in the middle of the night.

As part of the settlement, OpenAI must post openings on its public careers page and accept electronic applications. Employees will receive training on non-discrimination rules under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The company will pay $1.2 million in civil penalties and contribute an additional $2 million to a back-pay fund to compensate individuals affected by the alleged practices. The DOJ has not yet explained how it will decide which victims receive payments from that fund, and it may prove difficult given that discrimination depended on victims not seeing the job advertisements.

Other tech firms have reached similar agreements during the Biden administration. Meta agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement in 2021 after a DOJ lawsuit regarding its H1-B visa program, and the DOJ settled with Apple in 2023 over comparable under-advertising tactics. Reliance on immigrant labor is common across the industry, with Google, Meta and Amazon receiving the majority of approved H1-B visas in 2025. What has shifted is government policy. President Donald Trump has generally sought to restrict immigration, attempting to bar entrants from majority-Muslim countries during his first term and actively encouraging white South African immigrants in his second. In September 2025, he signed an executive order adding a $100,000 fee to certain visa applications, a pay-to-play approach that disproportionately impacts some businesses.