Rishi Sunak hired by Microsoft and Anthropic as paid advisor

Rishi Sunak has taken up senior part-time advisor roles at tech giant Microsoft and artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic.

The former prime minister has been told he must not lobby ministers on behalf of the companies by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), an independent watchdog which oversees the activities of former government figures.

Sunak – who remains the MP for Richmond and Northallerton – will donate payments for the jobs to a charity he recently founded, the watchdog said.

During his premiership, Sunak made tech regulation a significant priority, setting up an AI safety summit in 2023.

In letters of advice sent to Sunak by Acoba and published on Thursday, his role at Microsoft was described as providing “high- level strategic perspectives” on geopolitical trends.

The watchdog said it had been informed by Sunak that his advisory role at Anthropic – an AI firm seeking to compete with companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta – would be “akin to operating as an internal think tank”.

Sunak was told not to advise on bidding for UK contracts, or to lobby the government for two years from his last day in ministerial office.

In addition to the two tech roles, it was previously confirmed Sunak will act as a paid advisor to the bank Goldman Sachs, where he previously worked between 2001 and 2004.

There had been speculation that Sunak, who was in No 10 between October 2022 and July 2024, would leave the Commons to take up a Silicon Valley role shortly after the election.

He previously lived in California, where he still has a home, and held a US visa until 2021.

But in his final prime minister’s questions, Sunak vowed to spend more time in his constituency, which he called “the greatest place on Earth”.

“If anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire,” he said.

Earlier this year, he founded the Richmond Project, a charity which will focus on tackling numeracy problems, another area he was vocal about while in Downing Street.