OpenAI Makes First Media Bet With Acquisition of Tech Talk Show TBPN

OpenAI has bought TBPN (Technology Business Programming Network), a fast-growing founder-led tech talk show that has become a cult favourite in Silicon Valley. The deal marks OpenAI’s first purchase of a media property and puts the show under the purview of the company’s political and policy operation.

TBPN is hosted by former tech founders John Coogan and Jordi Hays and runs as a three-hour daily live program on YouTube and X. The show focuses on technology, business, AI and defense, and has built a reputation as an insider hub where industry leaders speak candidly about news and strategy.

The acquisition places TBPN inside OpenAI’s strategy team, where it will report to Chris Lehane, the company’s chief political operative. Lehane is a longtime political strategist known for his work in U.S. politics and for coining the phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” during the Clinton administration. He is also associated with the crypto industry super PAC Fairshake, which spent heavily in the 2024 election cycle, and joined OpenAI in 2024 to help shape its policy agenda.

Despite moving under OpenAI’s umbrella, TBPN is set to continue as its own brand. OpenAI plans to help the show scale, building on a business that is already on track to generate more than $30 million in revenue this year, according to reporting cited from The Wall Street Journal.

TBPN’s format has been compared to a kind of “SportsCenter” for the tech industry. It regularly hosts high-profile executives, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Guests join to react to the day’s technology and business news and, at times, make news themselves.

OpenAI already runs its own podcast dedicated to long-form conversations with people building technology at the company. TBPN adds a more freewheeling, industry-wide format to that media footprint.

OpenAI executives are positioning the deal as both a media investment and a strategic communications move. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s head of AGI deployment, said the company intends to draw on TBPN founders’ “amazing comms and marketing instincts” not just for the show but also more broadly. According to Simo, TBPN can help “bring AI to the world in a way that helps people understand the full impact of this technology on their daily lives,” and she argued that the show’s style is well-suited to a company like OpenAI, where “the standard communications playbook just doesn’t apply.”

The acquisition raises obvious questions about editorial independence, given that TBPN frequently discusses OpenAI and its competitors. Altman, who has called TBPN his favourite tech show on social media, publicly argued that the purchase will not soften the show’s stance. He said he does not expect TBPN to “go any easier” on OpenAI and joked that his own “occasional stupid decisions” would continue to provide fodder for criticism.

From TBPN’s perspective, the move is being framed as a shift from commentary into having more direct influence on how AI is rolled out and explained globally. Co-host Jordi Hays said in a statement that while the show has been critical of the industry at times, working with OpenAI stood out because of the company’s “openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right.” He described the acquisition as a way to move “from commentary to real impact in how this technology is distributed and understood globally,” calling that goal “incredibly important” to the TBPN team.

The governance structure under Lehane underscores how tightly OpenAI is tying the show to its broader political and policy strategy. Lehane has been described as a master of the “political dark arts,” and he has played a visible role in the crypto industry’s political efforts through Fairshake. At OpenAI, he has been involved in advancing policy recommendations at the federal level, including proposals that would limit state-level regulation of AI and loosen some environmental constraints that could impede data centre construction, according to the source material.

All of this places TBPN in a new role: still a tech insider’s talk show, but now owned by one of the sector’s most closely watched AI labs as it prepares for a potential IPO and navigates intense scrutiny over its technology and influence.