OpenAI and Statsig settle with DOJ over hiring practices for immigrant workers

The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division said Wednesday that OpenAI and Statsig, once a subsidiary of OpenAI, have agreed to a settlement. The agreement includes three years of monitoring of how the AI lab hires workers. The DOJ had accused the companies of using tactics to discourage U.S. citizens from applying for positions that were held by immigrant employees while the companies sponsored those workers for permanent residency.

Under the settlement, the companies do not admit wrongdoing but will pay $3.2 million. Of that, $1.2 million is a fine, and $2 million will be reserved for possible restitution to U.S. citizens who applied for those roles, if the DOJ finds they were harmed. The DOJ alleged that OpenAI and Statsig violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by not genuinely seeking qualified U.S. workers before filing permanent residence applications, known as PERM. According to the department, the companies did not post the positions on public job boards, sometimes aired radio advertisements in the late night, and required paper applications instead of digital ones.

The alleged violations involved fewer than 10 roles. As part of the settlement, the companies must pay the fine and accept DOJ oversight of their PERM roles. That oversight entails drafting and getting approval for their hiring policies for PERM roles and submitting semiannual reports. The reports must include how many foreign-worker sponsorship applications they filed, how many U.S. citizens were interviewed, and other statistics.

OpenAI acquired Statsig, an AI A/B testing company, in September 2025 and later divested part of the business in May 2026. The DOJ said it began investigating both companies separately before that acquisition, in August 2025. The investigation covered five cases at OpenAI between 2023 and 2025 and one case at Statsig.

The DOJ described this settlement as part of a broader crackdown on such practices. The INA, which dates to 1952, has also been enforced against other large technology companies in previous administrations. Under President Joe Biden, for example, Facebook and Apple entered into similar agreements, though in those instances the DOJ said the wrongdoing was widespread and systematic.