(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, has opened an investigation into “‘Big Tech’ companies’ funding of Biden administration staff salaries through an obscure program.”

Cruz, R-Texas, sent letters to the heads of four federal agencies to obtain information on whether the Biden administration was using an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) program to temporarily hire Big Tech Artificial Intelligence employees to implement an executive order the president issued last October.

The order on “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” directed federal agencies to take more than 100 actions to establish AI-related guidance across various policy areas. In April, the White House announced the agencies had completed all required actions on time and hired over 150 AI and AI-enabling professionals. Working with tech talent programs, they were “on track to hire hundreds by Summer 2024.”

Cruz sent letters to the heads of the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Commerce, National Science Foundation and Department of Transportation.

“To complete every action, agencies would have had to … bring on AI fellows by recruiting temporary – but influential – AI staff from external organizations through the … IPA program,” he said. “Critics, however, have raised reasonable concerns that these influential AI fellows are shaping federal policy to benefit their organizations’ funders and not the American people. Moreover, as federal agencies request increased funding for AI hiring, it is important Congress understand the extent to which, and how, agencies have already acquired AI staff in response to the expansive and demanding AI Executive Order.”

He also said hiring the Big Tech employees created “serious conflicts of interest.”

“The administration’s reported use of the IPA program to obtain AI staff, however, raises the question whether outside AI groups are improperly influencing federal AI policy,” he said.

Citing a March 2022 Politico report, Cruz notes that Google’s former CEO, Eric Schmidt, “was using the IPA program to fund his associates’ placement at the Office of Scientific and Technology Policy in the White House, which ‘is executing on an aggressive agenda’ regarding ‘algorithmic discrimination in the use of artificial intelligence’ – an alarmist phrase meant to justify the unelected bureaucracy’s policing and potential censorship of AI algorithms.”

He also cites a March 2024 report that revealed that through the IPA program, Facebook billionaire Dustin Moskovitz was paying the salaries of his fellows who were working in AI roles at the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Commerce.

“In effect, large AI technology companies are influencing the Biden administration’s AI policy from the inside and advancing their own anti-competitive agenda to shape the future of the AI industry,” Cruz said.

Because federal agencies are not required to report their IPA assignments, the Biden administration “can utilize these Big-Tech funded AI fellows with zero transparency to the American people,” Cruz warned.

The letters request the heads of the FTC, Commerce, NSF, and DOT to provide documentation and respond to questions about employees or IPA program fellows hired in response to the AI executive order no later than July 15.

The investigation was launched after U.S. House committees have held hearings and launched investigations on Big Tech’s role in a range of issues from censorship to child safety.