OpenAI's political operation linked to AI news site attacking critics

Journalist Tyler Johnston investigated AcutusWire.com, an anonymously operated news site that launched on Dec. 29, 2025, after Nathan Calvin, vice president and general counsel of the advocacy group Encode, forwarded him a suspicious interview request. The request came from a 'reporter' named Michael Chen, writing from a generic address, whose email Johnston ran through the AI detector Pangram, which flagged it as fully AI-generated. No person named Michael Chen could be found publicly associated with the site. In under four months, Acutus published 94 full-length articles on topics including AI policy, Senate races, pharmacy reform, nuclear energy, crypto regulation and franchising, with no masthead, bylines or named editors. Running every article through Pangram, Johnston found 69% flagged as fully AI-generated and another 28% as partially AI-generated; only three were classified as human-authored. Johnston says the site's own public source code confirms the pattern. The React app's JavaScript exposes an internal editorial interface with a field called 'AI Background Context' for feeding the AI story information, a 'Question Prompts' field for an 'AI interviewer,' and buttons labeled 'Generate Story Draft' and 'Regenerate.' The site's public API endpoint, acutuswire.com/api/wire, returns the full story database along with an internal AI editorial review: five review categories, four scored out of 100 (AP style compliance, quote accuracy, source verification, and one labeled 'acutus') and one status field for fact-checking. A field called 'aiOriginalText' preserves the AI's original wording next to edited text. Within a single story, the review process completes in a median of 44 seconds from the first flagged issue to the last, and the story goes live a median of 10 seconds after that. On 42 of the 94 stories, the AI reviewer's own overall status read 'needs_revision,' yet each was published anyway. The site's robots.txt and llms.txt files are tuned to let AI crawlers in, and the llms.txt claims the site follows 'a strict zero-hallucination editorial standard.' Many quotes in Acutus articles appear lifted from previously published content, consistent with LLM scraping, Johnston writes. But at least two came from real replies to the automated outreach: Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller told LinkedIn he was 'pleased to share my thoughts with Acutuswire, a production of a number of independent journalists,' after being quoted in a piece on skills-based hiring, and Calvin himself was approached by 'Michael Chen.' Other quotes come from unnamed sources, often described as a Republican Senate staffer or operative 'close to Senate leadership,' whose framing consistently favors the article's subject. Johnston traces Acutus to Patrick Hynes, president of the Republican PR firm Novus Public Affairs, who tweeted an Acutus article on Scott Brown's 2026 Senate candidacy and retweeted another. Hynes is based in New Hampshire, and a large share of Acutus content covers New Hampshire and Maine politics. On Jan. 24, ten days before President Trump signed reform of pharmacy benefit managers into law, Acutus ran a piece attacking them; PhRMA, which spent a record $38.19 million on lobbying in 2025 while pushing that reform, appears in the article's internal source log despite not being quoted, and Novus lists PhRMA as a client. Hynes himself is quoted, without disclosure, in an Acutus article praising New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte's workforce-housing push, using the same deregulatory framing sought by a client on Novus' list. Johnston notes Hynes previously co-founded the outlet NH Journal with fellow Republican operatives in 2010, which The Hill reported faced 'skepticism over its independence,' and left it in 2014 to join a PAC backing Scott Brown's Senate campaign. Johnston writes that this is the second time this month he has found links between an operation and Targeted Victory, the firm he describes as being at the center of OpenAI's $125 million political spending operation. The captured text ends mid-sentence, and no source in it establishes who specifically owns or funds Acutus, nor whether the site has responded to the findings.

Key facts

AcutusWire.com launched Dec. 29, 2025 and published 94 articles in under four months; the AI detector Pangram flagged 69% as fully AI-generated and 28% as partially AI-generated, with only three classified as human-authored.
The site's exposed source code and public API show an internal AI editorial pipeline, including a 'Generate Story Draft' button, review scores out of 100 for AP style, quote accuracy and source verification, and a field preserving the AI's original wording.
42 of the 94 published stories carried a 'needs_revision' status from the AI reviewer but were published anyway; the review completes in a median of 44 seconds and stories go live a median of 10 seconds after the last issue is resolved.
A bot posing as reporter 'Michael Chen' solicited comment from Encode's Nathan Calvin; Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller separately confirmed responding to the site believing it was staffed by independent journalists.
Journalist Tyler Johnston ties the site to Patrick Hynes of Republican PR firm Novus Public Affairs and, for the second time this month, to Targeted Victory, the firm he says is central to OpenAI's $125 million political operation.

Why it matters

The investigation offers concrete technical proof, not just suspicion, that an active news operation is AI-generated end to end: exposed source code shows the editorial interface, the AI review scoring and the field that preserves AI-written drafts before editing. It lands alongside a documented pattern of publishing stories the site's own AI reviewer flagged as unready, and it surfaces a second link this month between an operation and Targeted Victory, the firm the author places at the center of OpenAI's $125 million political spending.

Who it affects

AI industry critics are the direct target: Encode's Nathan Calvin was approached by the site's bot reporter over an AI bill. Real experts who believed they were talking to journalists, such as Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller, had their quotes used without knowing the outlet's true nature. The reporting also touches New Hampshire and Maine politicians including Gov. Kelly Ayotte and former Sen. Scott Brown, lobbying group PhRMA, and Republican operative Patrick Hynes and his firm Novus Public Affairs.

How to use it

The piece doubles as a method for spotting similar operations: run suspect outlets' articles through an AI detector like Pangram, check whether a public API endpoint (here, acutuswire.com/api/wire) exposes internal editorial data, and treat interview requests offering only 'written Q&A' with generic sender addresses as a red flag worth verifying before responding.

How solid is it

The core claim, that Acutus content is machine-generated, rests on more than AI-detector output: the site's own exposed source code and public API confirm an AI drafting and scoring pipeline, and Calvin's and Fuller's firsthand accounts corroborate it. The link to Hynes and Novus rests on circumstantial evidence, his tweets and retweets, overlapping client interests, and his own undisclosed quoted appearance, rather than a confirmed ownership record. The connection to OpenAI's political spending runs through Targeted Victory rather than a stated direct funding relationship, and the captured text ends mid-sentence before further evidence is presented.

Risks and caveats

No source in the material identifies who owns or funds Acutus, and the text does not describe a direct funding link from OpenAI's political operation to the site itself, only a reported connection to Targeted Victory. The text is cut off before its conclusion, and it is unclear whether Acutus has responded to the findings. Some anonymous quotes favoring the article subject's position may themselves have been fed into the AI rather than sourced independently, a pattern the author flags as suspicious but cannot fully verify from the outside.

“pleased to share my thoughts with Acutuswire, a production of a number of independent journalists”

— Joseph Fuller, Harvard Business School professor, on LinkedIn