Will Depue, who worked on OpenAI's Sora, claims China has complete access to OpenAI and Anthropic's internal GitHub and Slack · Digg

/Tech7h ago

Will Depue, who worked on OpenAI's Sora, claims China has complete access to OpenAI and Anthropic's internal GitHub and Slack

Story Overview

An ex-OpenAI research engineer who contributed to Sora asserts that China holds unrestricted entry to OpenAI and Anthropic code repositories, chat channels, and internal notes, yet supplies no logs, screenshots, or incident details to back the statement.

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Original post

Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)@teortaxesTex#501inTech

If Chyna is so good at digital espionage, why wouldn't it be even better at architecture research? If you just argue that your colleagues are CCP agents, please let them go back already.

will depue@willdepue

there is no question, none at all, that china has full access to all of openai & anthropic’s github/slack/docs today

no disrespect to their independent research progress, but i wouldn’t be surprised if we see plausibly-deniable stolen arch methods in chinese oss models

4:51 PM · Jun 19, 2026 · 9.2K Views

Open Question

Basis for the claim remains thin

Depue points to private talks with security researchers plus his own time inside OpenAI, while acknowledging he sees no technical proof that would settle the matter.

Industry Shift

Access symmetry draws equal notice

Replies highlight that Western labs appear to hold similar visibility into leading Chinese models, raising the possibility that method borrowing flows in both directions without public attribution.

Sentiment

Positive users endorse claims of Chinese espionage risks at OpenAI and Anthropic as credible warnings, while negative users dismiss the allegations as baseless insults or unfalsifiable attacks on the labs.

Pos

76.9%

Neg

23.1%

16 comments with sentiment.

Cluster Engagement

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Posts from X

Most Activity

VIEWS26KBOOKMARKS35LIKES471RETWEETS18

elie@eliebakouch

there is no question, none at all, that all labs has full access to all of deepseek, kimi, glm, minimax tech report/model today

will depue@willdepue

there is no question, none at all, that china has full access to all of openai & anthropic’s github/slack/docs today

no disrespect to their independent research progress, but i wouldn’t be surprised if we see plausibly-deniable stolen arch methods in chinese oss models

6h26K47135

REPLIES23

roon@tszzl

@willdepue Maybe they can figure out wth is going on here

will depue@willdepue

there is no question, none at all, that china has full access to all of openai & anthropic’s github/slack/docs today

no disrespect to their independent research progress, but i wouldn’t be surprised if we see plausibly-deniable stolen arch methods in chinese oss models

7h14.1K41811

kache@yacineMTB

A drama where a Chinese spy and an American CIA spook meet at openai while they're larping as OpenAI researchers and fall in love

will depue@willdepue

@CFGeek after talking at length with security researcher friends, and first-hand experience of openai security posture, i really can’t see this not being true

and even so, i don’t think anyone would dispute there being a handful of human intelligence sources per lab

6h10.8K18216

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

I wouldn't put things in quiiiite so absolute of terms (there are at least some practical issues in exfiltrating everything given access IIUC) but broadly speaking, yeah it's a super serious/bad situation + I appreciate @willdepue calling attention to it

will depue@willdepue

there is no question, none at all, that china has full access to all of openai & anthropic’s github/slack/docs today

no disrespect to their independent research progress, but i wouldn’t be surprised if we see plausibly-deniable stolen arch methods in chinese oss models

6h9.1K5711

Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)@teortaxesTex

The really absurd thing is that Americans treat their AGI industry as an honest-to-goodness Manhattan Project to cybernuke the Chinese, but don't actually expect the latter to resist in any meaningful way except try to compete in products. The CCP are hippies, thus deserve death

flaw@flawedaxioms

It is really absurd that like 60% of the staff of US companies building potentially the most vital dual use tech ever are foreigners. This has to be making the admins head explode on the daily.

6h4.7K617

Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)@teortaxesTex

imagine Chinese folks at OpenAI. "Hey Tao u sure you didn't leak our architecture to the CCP? Dem reds are getting real good." - "Nah Mark, couldn't be me." - "Shengli, you? Are u letting the chicoms access our Slack via your acc?" - "No comra- sir! Sama's Interests Come First!"

Charles Foster@CFGeek

@willdepue clearance interviewer: ok last question, just a formality… have you worked with any foreign spies?

will depue: most definitely

1h3.9K394

will depue@willdepue

@CFGeek after talking at length with security researcher friends, and first-hand experience of openai security posture, i really can’t see this not being true

and even so, i don’t think anyone would dispute there being a handful of human intelligence sources per lab

7h4.2K294

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

just saving some new receipts here coincidentally on this particular thread

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

reminder to one day tell the tale from many moons ago of how a certain group within a certain lab pushed for extra surveillance/auditing of certain ethnicities (regardless of nationality)

傻逼透了

6h1.6K144

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4159-1.html

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

I wouldn't put things in quiiiite so absolute of terms (there are at least some practical issues in exfiltrating everything given access IIUC) but broadly speaking, yeah it's a super serious/bad situation + I appreciate @willdepue calling attention to it

6h1.4K64

Nathan Lambert@natolambert

@eliebakouch banger

elie@eliebakouch

there is no question, none at all, that all labs has full access to all of deepseek, kimi, glm, minimax tech report/model today

6h1.7K330

will depue@willdepue

i don’t know if this has happened yet, likely not, and they don’t seem to need the help much so far anyways. but it probably will

even just pointing at the papers to look hard at is often enough. having conviction, knowing what works is most of the work anyways

7h1.6K152

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

keeping a nice bamboo ceiling cap on talent here from hypothetical coercion risk is a great foot gun carpet to shove sinophobia under and places that indulge in these theories any differently than any other form of corporate espionage by any other nationality deserve to have talent driven away and back to where they supposedly came from

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

Ah I see (honestly just getting back from an East coast trip so v tired, not trying to be obtuse)

I think that is one of multiple factors one might worry about in this context, forgot it was emphasized here, but I do agree it is one of the risk vectors, not bc of people being badly motivated but due to coercion risks

16m53562

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

@Miles_Brundage @willdepue with all due respect, it's pretty disappointing to see you encouraging this, miles

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

I wouldn't put things in quiiiite so absolute of terms (there are at least some practical issues in exfiltrating everything given access IIUC) but broadly speaking, yeah it's a super serious/bad situation + I appreciate @willdepue calling attention to it

35m75591

kache@yacineMTB

Starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston

6h80712

Andrew Curran@AndrewCurran_

@teortaxesTex

will depue@willdepue

@CFGeek after talking at length with security researcher friends, and first-hand experience of openai security posture, i really can’t see this not being true

and even so, i don’t think anyone would dispute there being a handful of human intelligence sources per lab

7h2.4K71

DeathInFire@Death1nFire

@teortaxesTex "You see if we get ASI your military is going to be useless, like swords against automatic rifles" "..." "Wait why are you nuking us, our AI hasn't finished building the mithril dome yet"

35m21721

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

@Miles_Brundage @willdepue no, it's about individual employees here and has always been

saying it's "ccp" is just political cover

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

@suchenzang @willdepue Is the concern “China” vs. “the Chinese government”? Agree that could have been framed more precisely, though I took Will to mean the latter

27m21051

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

Ah I see (honestly just getting back from an East coast trip so v tired, not trying to be obtuse)

I think that is one of multiple factors one might worry about in this context, forgot it was emphasized here, but I do agree it is one of the risk vectors, not bc of people being badly motivated but due to coercion risks

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

@Miles_Brundage @willdepue no, it's about individual employees here and has always been

saying it's "ccp" is just political cover

24m24601

Susan Zhang@suchenzang

@Miles_Brundage @willdepue > china has full access

"good security" hardly covers that first key phrase

Miles Brundage@Miles_Brundage

@suchenzang @willdepue Encourage good security?

31m22931

shako@shakoistsLog

@tszzl @willdepue 100% chance you guys have hired spies

6h11271