For most of the past year, it looked like prediction markets had kicked off a new golden age of fraud. On Polymarket, traders raked in fortunes from suspiciously timed bets on geopolitical events like the raid on Venezuela and the Iran War. It wasn’t clear whether the US government would bother pursuing some of the most flagrant bad actors, since Polymarket’s crypto-based platform was technically offshore and not regulated or licensed within the country.

Now, however, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees prediction markets, wants you to know that it’s watching very, very closely. The agency is searching for suspicious behavior from traders within the United States who have been sneaking onto offshore markets, including Polymarket’s crypto platform—which is blocked stateside—by using virtual private networks. “We’re going to find them, and we’re going to bring actions,” agency chairman Michael Selig told WIRED this week, speaking from the CFTC’s headquarters in a Washington, DC, office park called Patriots Plaza II.

Selig says the agency, which is especially lean right now, is staffing up. Like so many other AI-pilled workplaces, the CFTC is also leaning into automation to handle the growing workload, including tools that analyze trading patterns and flag potential manipulation. “You’ve got so much data,” Selig says. “When we feed it into AI, we get really great information. It can help us understand things, like where we might want to investigate, or when we might need to send a subpoena to a trader.”

In addition to proprietary surveillance systems developed in-house, the agency’s arsenal includes third-party blockchain tracing tools like Chainalysis for crypto platforms, and market abuse detection software including Nasdaq Smarts for centralized markets. (Beyond Nasdaq Smarts, the agency did not specify which AI tools it uses and declined to share more specific examples.)

Prominent prediction market companies have recently started touting all the work they’re doing to catch sketchy bettors. US-based exchange Kalshi, Polymarket’s primary competitor, eagerly announced that it has suspended and penalized customers flagged for insider trading and market manipulation.

In April, after significant backlash over suspected insider trading, Polymarket announced its own partnership with Chainalysis. It was part of a broader push to crack down on market manipulation. While the company’s CEO, Shayne Coplan, had talked in the past about why insider trading could be good for prediction markets, Polymarket changed its approach this spring, updating its market integrity rules and announcing a partnership with Palantir for its US-based sports markets (the Chainalysis deal focuses on the offshore platform). The company did not respond to WIRED’s request for comments for this story.

According to Chainalysis spokesperson Maddie Kenney, the company analyzes the same data for both clients. “The value Chainalysis adds for our customers, including Polymarket and the CFTC, is organizing the data and enriching it with the attributions and insights we’ve accumulated over years in the space,” she says. Certainly sounds like a good deal for Chainalysis!

The CFTC’s assurances that it is hunting insiders comes at a moment of intense scrutiny on prediction markets. In March, Connecticut senator Chris Murphy told WIRED that he suspected White House staffers were engaged in insider trading on war-related contracts. At the beginning of April, seven members of Congress asked the CFTC to investigate overseas markets offering war-themed events contracts. In a letter, the lawmakers argued that the commission had the authority and responsibility to curb insider trading, especially on “morally obscene” trades on military action. Selig recently told Congress that the company is pursuing “hundreds, if not thousands” of insider trading tips.

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Attorneys delivered closing arguments in the Musk v. Altman trial on Thursday in a final attempt to convince a judge and jury that their respective clients, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, are the most well-intentioned, truth-telling stewards of OpenAI’s founding nonprofit mission. A judgement could be delivered as soon as next week, ending a decade-long battle between two of the technology industry’s most influential entrepreneurs.

But regardless of the outcome, there is a wide set of losers in this case. Based on ample amounts of evidence, it appears that the people worst off are the employees, policy makers, and members of the public who believed in the mission of a nonprofit research lab—and supported OpenAI because of it. What seemed to take precedent for Musk and OpenAI’s other cofounders at almost every turn was building the world’s leading AI lab—even if that meant creating a multibillion dollar for-profit company in the process.

“It’s hard to see how the public interest is being protected by either of these parties, and that is really what is ultimately at stake in a case about a nonprofit,” says Jill Horwitz, a Northwestern University law professor with expertise in nonprofits and innovation, who listened to the closing arguments. “The public interest in the nonprofit is at risk no matter who wins.”

OpenAI’s stated mission is to ensure artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, but humanity is not a party in this case. In practice, OpenAI has spent the last decade attempting to rival multitrillion dollar companies like Google, and build AGI first. Additionally, Musk and Altman have fought tooth and nail to be the ones who control OpenAI.

“Musk and Altman are basically locked in a race to be the first to build superintelligence, and they both rightly fear what the other will do if they win. The rest of us should fear them both,” says Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who joined in 2022 and has raised concerns over the company’s safety culture. He was part of a group of former OpenAI researchers that filed an amicus brief in this case against OpenAI’s for-profit conversion, arguing that the nonprofit structure was critical in their decision to join the company.

At trial, OpenAI’s nonprofit was discussed as if it were yet another corporate investor. OpenAI’s lawyers argued that giving the nonprofit a $200 billion stake in the for-profit company is proof that OpenAI is fulfilling its mission. Public advocacy groups disagree that funding alone is sufficient.

“I am among the many people who are glad to see how many philanthropic resources the OpenAI foundation has at its disposal to do good work,” says Nathan Calvin, VP of state affairs for the AI safety nonprofit Encode, which filed an amicus brief opposing OpenAI’s restructuring earlier in this case. “But it’s worth remembering that the nonprofit also has a governance role, and that the mission of the nonprofit is not that of a typical foundation, it is specifically to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity. Money is important for that goal and is useful all else equal, but it is not the goal in and of itself.”

Origin Story

Evidence revealed in this case suggests Altman and Musk were in agreement about OpenAI launching as a nonprofit and operating much like a typical startup. They shared the goal of beating Google DeepMind in the race to AGI. But creating OpenAI as a nonprofit turned out to be a horribly inconvenient means to winning that race.

Musk has accused Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, its cofounder and president, of straying from the nonprofit’s founding mission. He claims the founders used his $38 million investment to turn OpenAI into an $850 billion company and make several of its cofounders billionaires.