What just happened? OpenAI may be celebrating its recent milestone of hitting more than one billion weekly active users, but the company has just received some less-welcome news. Both the ChatGPT maker and a subsidiary must pay $3.2 million to settle US Justice Department allegations that they discriminated against US applicants by favoring temporary visa holders for jobs and discouraging US applicants.
The settlement addresses allegations that OpenAI and Statsig, which makes product development software, violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by preferring visa holders for jobs during the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process. INA bars discrimination based on citizenship.
PERM allows a US employer to sponsor workers for permanent resident status. However, the employer must prove that no qualified, willing, or able US workers are available for the jobs.
The DoJ investigation found that OpenAI did not advertise positions it sought to fill through the PERM program on its external job website. It also required applicants to mail paper applications instead of submitting electronic ones for positions.
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OpenAI also took other steps to discourage US workers from applying, such as advertising positions on the radio late at night.
"It is illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers by preferring temporary visa holders for jobs," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.
OpenAI will pay $1.2 million in civil penalties and establish a back-pay fund of $2 million to compensate victims.
The agreement also requires OpenAI to train its personnel on the INA's anti-discrimination requirements, revise its employment policies, and be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements to prevent future discrimination.
OpenAI denied any wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.
The DoJ says that this is the 13th settlement since last year in cases where companies allegedly discriminated against US workers.
TSMC has faced similar accusations. In 2024, more than a dozen current and former employees sued the chipmaker, alleging that it favored Taiwanese and Chinese workers in hiring and promotions while subjecting American employees to greater scrutiny, poorer treatment, and a hostile workplace.
The case expanded in June 2025 to include 15 additional plaintiffs, bringing further claims of anti-American and racist comments, exclusion from Mandarin-language meetings, and US workers being replaced by Taiwanese visa holders.
That lawsuit remains active in California federal court and has not gone to trial or been settled. As of August 2026, the parties are still in discovery, with the judge issuing orders in late July concerning electronic records and TSMC's responses to document requests.