I think he's out on a thin limb.
If there's one thing people who espouse "reasonable pro-AI" views push, is that the US has to go ahead building chatbots because otherwise the Chinese will beat us.
In the current point in time, AI is under perceived attack by the Democrats (I doubt they'll go against the lobbyists but w/e) and the US Right has realized that no-one really likes Big Tech - they're convenient scapegoats for all sorts of things. Sure they want billionaires in charge but people like Sam Altman aren't really their kinds of people.
Throwing the book at Jensen would help both sides.