AI Super PACs wage $27 million proxy battle over regulation in New York congressional race

A tech worker-backed PAC is bringing a $5M knife to Big Tech's $100M gunfight

A grassroots movement is forming among everyday tech workers who are demanding their companies develop and deploy AI responsibly. And the Guardrails Alliance, a new super PAC dedicated to supporting AI legislation, aims to leverage that discontent. Democratic operatives Shaunna Thomas and Leah Hunt-Hendrix launched the Guardrails Alliance on Thursday with backing from tech employees, labor unions, and other groups, according to The New York Times. "Our fundamental belief here is that people still do have the power to stop this autocratic takeover of the Trump administration and the tech sector," Thomas told the NYT. Guardrails positions itself as a populist political movement that runs on small donations from people in the trenches of the AI boom. The PAC has about $5 million at its disposal today and plans to raise $15 million this cycle -- small potatoes compared to deep-pocketed adversaries like Leading the Future, which has more than $100 million from tech leaders like OpenAI President Greg Brockman. Guardrails will buy ads to support Alex Bores, a New York congressional candidate who became Leading the Future's first target and is running in the primaries next week. On Thursday, Bores shared an ad featuring the parents of Adam Raine, the teenager who died by suicide after months of prolonged conversations with ChatGPT. Bores is also receiving support from another pro-legislation super PAC, Public First Action, which has backing from Anthropic. While OpenAI has tried to distance itself from Brockman's donations, many employees are reportedly unconvinced, and several have voiced concerns on social media about Leading the Future's attacks on Bores. This year, tech workers have also mobilized to demand their chiefs end contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and urge the Pentagon to withdraw its designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk -- a label critics say was imposed without due process in retaliation for Anthropic's limits on its technology being used for mass surveillance and autonomous warfare. "This is not about matching [Leading the Future] dollar for dollar," Thomas said. "What this vehicle is meant to do is be a political home for people who are concerned about the way the anti-regulation AI tech sector is trying to manipulate elections." TechCrunch has reached out to the Guardrails Alliance.

The $27 million Al proxy war over Alex Bores ends in a draw

The expensive, $27 million political proxy war between Anthropic and OpenAI came to a draw last night when Alex Bores, a New York state Assemblyman whose popularity surged after being targeted by a pro-AI super PAC, narrowly lost the Democratic primary to represent New York's 12th Congressional district. Prior to the race, Bores, a former tech industry employee, had coauthored and successfully passed the high-profile RAISE Act, which had implemented guardrails and safety requirements on frontier AI companies; a version of his bill was signed into state law last year. But the legislation drew the ire of Leading the Future, a $100 million super PAC backing a deregulatory agenda in this year's midterms that was funded partially by OpenAI, Palantir, and Andreessen Horowitz executives. But his candidacy drew nationwide attention after several other AI-centric super PACs connected to Anthropic began pouring millions into the NY-12 race to defend Bores. (Legally, Bores is not allowed to coordinate his campaign with super PACs.) In the end, the once-obscure Bores came in second to Assemblyman Micah Lasher, 35 percent to 39.1 percent, according to the most recent ballot count. Ultimately, according to FEC filings, the AI companies spent $27.41 million warring over Bores's candidacy. Combined, the pro-Bores super PACS -- Jobs and Democracy PAC, Dream NYC, You Can Push Back, and the Guardrails Alliance -- spent $19.26 million to support Bores, while Leading the Future spent $8.15 million. All in all, an unusually massive amount of money was spilled for one local election -- a primary, no less -- because it was seen as a bellwether for how the midterms might go, especially when it comes to AI regulation. But several factors well outside of AI issues factor into Bores's loss. In fact, local Manhattan politics likely remained the most important aspect. The 35-year-old assemblyman had entered the race facing a steep challenge against Lasher, long viewed as the protégé of the district's retiring Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and backed by a super PAC run by former New York City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg. (Lasher, notably, had also been a cosponsor of the RAISE Act.) The support of the city's political establishment ultimately carried Lasher over the finish line, but Bores outperformed two other high-profile contenders: Jack Schlossberg, the 33-year old grandson of president John F. Kennedy, trailed at third with 10.8 percent, while George Conway, the former Republican lawyer who'd become famous for his antagonism against Donald Trump, came in a distant, unexpected fifth place, behind Nina Schwalbe, with just 7.1 percent. But the national narrative around Bores's race had a different meaning, given that three of the super PACs supporting him were backed by industry entities critical of OpenAI and other pro-innovation, anti-regulatory industry players. Jobs and Democracy PAC was funded by Public First, a super PAC that had received a $20 million donation from the regulation-focused rival company Anthropic. Dream NYC received heavy funding from Dan Ziegler, an early Anthropic employee. And You Can Fight Back was funded by a $3.5 million donation from crypto billionaire and Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, who'd explicitly told The New York Times that he intended to push against OpenAI's influence. In a statement congratulating Lasher on his victory, Bores noted that he had not initially entered the race to make "a singular point about AI," but argued that his surprisingly close performance illustrated a political reality that may carry into the general elections. "Though we've come up short tonight, the example set here was not the one the AI oligarchs intended. They set out to make people afraid to stand up to them. Instead, they learned just how ready people are to push back." The general election, however, may prove to be a different battlefield. While NY-12 is all but guaranteed to be held by a Democrat come November, the partisan fights over gubernatorial and congressional seats will increasingly come down to whether GOP candidates support Trump, whose views on AI regulation have been increasingly mercurial. Innumerable other factors will ultimately play a role on voters' choices, such as inflation, the war with Iran, and data centers, which have become a nationwide concern but a nonfactor in the Manhattan race. But the AI industry's super PACs have already begun spending millions in other races across the country. According to Transformer's campaign finance tracker, both sides have dropped a combined $50.1 million across 19 states, with the NY-12 primary being the most expensive, followed by the recent Texas primaries, where they spent a total of $4.6 million across seven races.

A New York House primary has become an AI industry family feud with millions in corporate spending

NEW YORK (AP) -- When New York Assemblyman Alex Bores decided to seek a promotion to Congress, the technology industry leapt into his way. Angered by Bores' legislation regulating artificial intelligence, a political group underwritten by investors in OpenAI spent more than $7 million on ads designed to crush the former computer engineer, who's running in the ultracompetitive June 23 Democratic primary for a Manhattan-based U.S. House district. That group, Leading the Future, counts titans of Silicon Valley, major venture capitalists and alumni of President Donald Trump's Republican administration among its donors. Bores complained about the spending, warning that it would deter other state lawmakers and members of Congress from trying to rein in the fast-growing industry. He swiftly became a nationally recognized cautionary tale of an underdog politician battling against an overwhelming tide of tech money. But then another wing of Silicon Valley rode to Bores' rescue. Political groups partly funded by Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude, have spent more than $10 million boosting Bores' campaign. Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, an Anthropic investor, has pledged another $3.5 million. Bores' race is now a proxy battle for two competing visions of how government should treat the technology industry and artificial intelligence. Adding to the tension is Bores' past working for Palantir, which he quit during Trump's first term over what he said were concerns about the tech company's work on immigration enforcement. "The lines are being drawn, and this primary is very much an expression of that," said Morten Bay, a research fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. "The core divide is regulation -- whether you're for or against it." Tech industry is at odds over regulation The schism mirrors a similar one running through Silicon Valley. Some tech titans, like Elon Musk, have embraced Trump and his movement, as well as the idea of limiting or eliminating most government regulations. But a large chunk of the industry remains traditionally Democratic, in favor of some government safeguards. Leading the Future -- funded by major Trump donors like OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale -- has spent $7.6 million through a subsidiary against Bores. The political action committee, formed last year as the artificial intelligence industry's main political muscle, says that it supports AI regulation but that Congress should take the lead. The group contends that Bores is the only candidate who is bought and paid for. "As we have said from day one, Anthropic, its investors and the dark-money groups it funds would spend millions to send Alex Bores to Congress, and that is exactly what has happened," said Josh Vlasto, a co-lead of Leading the Future. Bores points to his own record crafting AI safety legislation for how he'd tackle the issue at the federal level. The regulation he spearheaded, known as the RAISE Act, is considered among the most sweeping attempts by a state to control the new technology. It requires major AI companies to file reports about safeguards against "catastrophic" risks that could injure more than 50 people, like the previously only-in-science-fiction scenario of AI melting down nuclear power plants or engineering new viruses. Leading the Future opposed Bores' original proposal but acceded to a modified version that was signed into law. But the PAC has made clear it hasn't forgiven Bores and describes his views as extreme. Bores pushed strict rules in New York The RAISE Act is the sort of regulation that would be nullified by Trump's proposed AI framework, which would bar states from enacting their own AI rules so Congress could create a national standard. However, there's been little movement in Washington to do that, which has left the industry essentially unregulated at the federal level. Leading the Future's refrain that Bores is a tool of OpenAI's business competitor has been taken up by Bores' many rivals in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. His 12th Congressional District stretches across upper and midtown Manhattan and is one of the wealthiest and most Democratic districts in the country. At recent debates, Bores' opponents have claimed he's simply a pawn in a corporate battle. "You're in the middle of a civil war between OpenAI and Anthropic. It has nothing to do with standing up to Trump's mega donors," said Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family heir and social media personality also running for the seat. Bores and his allies contend his opponents are simply trying to confuse voters. "This race started with AI megadonors pledging $10 million to stop me because they were afraid after I passed the strongest AI safety law in the country," Bores said in a statement. "Since then, everyone who supports AI regulation and safety -- from teachers to tech workers, from AI safety advocates to progressive activists -- has united to take the other side. This isn't one company versus another, this is one ideology versus another: regulate the powerful and protect people, or don't." Some tech groups are backing Bores Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, runs the political action committee Public First, which has spent more than $6 million to back Bores through a subsidiary. The committee was created explicitly to counter Leading the Future and was an outgrowth of a nonprofit Carson helped fund to push for AI regulation. In an interview, Carson bristled at the suggestion that the enterprise was simply an Anthropic tool and said it had raised $30 million from nongovernmental organizations before Anthropic made a $20 million contribution. "It's not like two billionaires fighting it out," Carson said. "It's two philosophical movements fighting it out. All of them have wealthy supporters." Chris Larsen, a cryptocurrency billionaire who's pledged about $3.5 million on Bores' behalf, said in a statement that his decision to get involved "resulted directly from OpenAI's threats to make examples of candidates who seek common-sense regulation." Bay, the research fellow, noted that the district is an odd one for the more Trump-friendly groups to invest in because it's so liberal. Indeed, Bores' main rival for the nomination, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, supported Bores' RAISE Act. Carson said his group wants Bores to win but is comfortable with Lasher. "He's very good on AI issues too," Carson said. "We win either way."

The AI Super PACs Trying to Influence the Midterms

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. OpenAI's CEO signed a letter in 2023 acknowledging that AI might cause human beings to go extinct. More recently, Anthropic's CEO said that AI will "test us as a species." Many Americans seem to believe them: A March poll showed that a majority of voters think the risks of the technology outweigh the benefits. Now, as the midterm elections approach, tech-affiliated super PACs are investing tens of millions of dollars to try to overcome that animus. To understand their strategy, think back just a few short years to a playbook established by the cryptocurrency industry. During the 2024 election cycle, crypto and venture-capital firms poured funds into a super PAC called Fairshake, which spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting pro-crypto candidates and attempting to undercut anti-crypto candidates. The plan worked. Major politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) supported by Fairshake and its affiliate PACs defeated their opponents; Congress became marginally more accepting of crypto; and the industry notched several major policy wins the following year. AI-backed super-PAC groups are now adopting Fairshake's model, but under profoundly different circumstances: About half of American adults say that they use chatbots such as ChatGPT, whereas just under one-fifth say that they've used or invested in crypto. AI is both ubiquitous and largely distrusted. No leading candidates are advocating for a ban. Instead, the question is how this industry ought to be regulated. Two super-PAC groups offer two different answers. One, Leading the Future, which was co-founded by the venture-capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz, has embraced a regulation-light approach to AI, focusing on "identifying, maintaining, and growing pro-AI candidates." It has raised more than $140 million, receiving contributions from the VC firm's founders as well as OpenAI President Greg Brockman. Leading the Future's priorities seem to align with those of OpenAI. (The AI firm recently put out a statement distancing itself from the super PAC.) Meanwhile, OpenAI's main rival, Anthropic, donated $20 million to the competition: Public First Action, a nonprofit that works with super PACs to back candidates who have a focus on AI safety. (Anthropic has stated that its donation is reserved exclusively for the group's AI-education initiatives and "cannot be used for federal election activity.") The group touts its support of comprehensive regulation over the "move fast and break things" approach. It's in line with how Anthropic has described its priorities -- the company has always positioned itself as a humane, safety-focused alternative to first-mover OpenAI and was recently blacklisted by Pete Hegseth's Department of Defense after it refused to remove guardrails from one of its AI models (the company is currently suing the government). One of Public First Action's co-founders described it as "the anti-super PAC super PAC" -- purely a way to counter Leading the Future and its Donald Trump-aligned donors. A high-profile battle between the two has been playing out in New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Alex Bores, one of the leading candidates, is a former Palantir employee who left the company after it renewed its contract with ICE; he's been running as the candidate who knows how to regulate Big Tech because he understands its power. Leading the Future's ads have blasted him for his focus on regulation, calling him a "hypocrite" who will stifle AI's progress. Politico calculates that groups affiliated with the tech industry have spent $26 million to ensure that Bores doesn't win. Meanwhile, Public First Action and other aligned groups have spent $18 million to back him. The political strategist Cooper Teboe told me that the New York race "will be viewed as the final exam" for this model of AI-backed political spending. If Leading the Future wins out and Bores loses, the super PAC could double down on its playbook in future races. So far, Leading the Future's spending has arguably given Bores more attention, and has in some ways bolstered his appeal to AI-critical voters. One of his own campaign ads satirizes an "AI super PAC" with an evil-sounding robot voice that is trying to destroy him; the ad paints Bores as the level-headed alternative. As the midterms approach, debates over AI have intensified. Last month, when commencement speakers at the University of Central Florida, the University of Arizona, and Middle Tennessee State University began to talk about AI's importance in graduates' lives, they were met with loud boos. It's worth watching video clips from the events to get a sense of the ambient feeling; these kids hate AI. People are especially skeptical of data centers: Seven out of 10 Americans don't want to see one built in their area. And the conversation has lately escalated into violence: Two months ago, an Indiana politician's home was fired at 13 times, and a handwritten note reading "No Data Centers" was left on his doorstep. The industry seems to be realizing that supersize personalities such as OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, who tend to speak about AI's potential in extreme terms, aren't necessarily equipped to represent the tech to worried voters. The fight over AI regulation has the potential to affect nearly everyone in American society. How should AI's processing power be taxed? Will data centers ultimately subsidize the restoration of the country's electrical grid? What towns should allow data centers to be built, and which shouldn't? Voters will decide, but the industry -- and its money -- will be guiding the conversation. Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Today's News Dispatches Explore all of our newsletters here. Evening Read The Warrior-Witches of Ukraine's Resistance By Ken Harbaugh Read the full article. More From The Atlantic Culture Break Read. Critics of the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy pioneered an American pastime: obsessing over a document dump. Kaitlyn Tiffany's new book is about the women who went deep examining the crime. Watch (or skip). Toy Story 5 (out now in theaters) confronts a nightmare of modern parenting, David Sims writes.

New Super PAC, the Guardrails Alliance, Aims to Rally Tech Workers to Help Limit A.I.

The Guardrails Alliance, which has raised $5 million, is positioning itself as a populist effort that will take on the pro-A.I. interests trying to influence this year's elections. At an internal OpenAI policy meeting last month, employees pressed executives on donations that one of the company's founders had made to Leading the Future, a super PAC that favors lighter regulation of artificial intelligence and has become a powerful force in the midterm elections. Top policy executives tried to distance OpenAI from the activities of Leading the Future and the co-founder, according to current and former employees who described the meeting as tense but productive. But not all of OpenAI's employees, who disagree with the super PAC's tactics and decisions, left feeling reassured. Now, two Democratic operatives are aiming to leverage the unease within the tech industry over A.I. and harness an agitated work force into a political movement. On Thursday, they unveiled a super PAC, the Guardrails Alliance, with the support of tech workers, labor unions and other groups to push back on deep-pocketed interests like Leading the Future. The group is positioning itself as a populist effort in which small-dollar donations from rank-and-file workers will take on moneyed entities that oppose reining in A.I., while supporting legislation to safeguard the technology. "Our fundamental belief here is that people still do have the power to stop this autocratic takeover of the Trump administration and the tech sector," said Shaunna Thomas, who founded Guardrails with Leah Hunt-Hendrix, referring to how the Trump administration has generally shied from imposing A.I. rules. Guardrails is small compared with Leading the Future, which has a political budget of more than $100 million. Guardrails and its linked nonprofit have raised $5 million, with a goal of amassing $15 million this cycle. It has started deploying the cash. Guardrails said it was buying ads for the Democratic primary in New York City's 12th Congressional District to support Alex Bores, a former tech worker who has written A.I. safety legislation. The race is a focal point in the midterm battle over the technology, with more than $10 million spent on ads by at least three A.I.-related super PACs to support or oppose Mr. Bores before the primary on Tuesday. Guardrails plans to air $250,000 of ads for him over the final days of the race. Guardrails is emerging at a thorny time for the A.I. industry, which faces a backlash over how the technology may affect jobs, warfare and communities. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have seen the moment as a referendum on how the public views A.I., and executives at the firms have poured money into different super PACs. Leading the Future was announced last year, with $50 million pledged from the A.I. investor Andreessen Horowitz and $50 million from Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, and his wife, Anna. Since then, three super PACs, including Guardrails, have formed in reaction to Leading the Future. In November, a group of donors aligned with Anthropic, OpenAI's rival, unveiled a super PAC called Public First. In May, Chris Larsen, a tech billionaire, began a group that has been spending primarily in the Bores race to specifically push back against OpenAI. OpenAI declined to comment. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.) Ms. Thomas and Ms. Hunt-Hendrix, the Guardrails founders, come from the Democratic Party's left flank. Last year, they began having conversations with groups that said there had not been enough conversations about how to protect people from the rapidly advancing technology. Ms. Thomas previously co-founded UltraViolet, a women's advocacy nonprofit group. Ms. Hunt-Hendrix, who straddles the world of left-wing politics and major donors, is a granddaughter of a Texas oil baron and has sought to use her proximity to the wealthy to move the Democratic Party to the left. Guardrails said its supporters included Chris Hyams, a former chief executive of the employment site Indeed.com; the American Federation of Teachers union; the American Association of University Professors; and the Working Families Party. David Farhi, a former OpenAI researcher, is also a donor. Guardrails said it was in discussions with more tech workers who had concerns about groups like Leading the Future. "This is the oldest story in business: You have billionaire C.E.O.s who want no restrictions or accountability," said Mr. Hyams, who left Indeed last year and now teaches A.I. ethics in Austin, Texas. "And then you have the rest of us, who want to be protected from completely unbridled wealth generation at all costs." At OpenAI, employees have voiced concerns on social media about Leading the Future and its attacks on Mr. Bores. After the tense internal meeting last month, which was earlier reported on by Transformer, the company posted to its policy blog, "We want to be explicit: No outside political group speaks for OpenAI or represents our company's views." Ms. Thomas said she saw Guardrails as a grass-roots counterweight to OpenAI. "This is not about matching them dollar for dollar, fighting them with money or another set of billionaires," she said. "What this vehicle is meant to do is be a political home for people who are concerned about the way the anti-regulation A.I. tech sector is trying to manipulate elections."

New York's primary went from celebrity contest to AI proxy-war. See live election results.

A Democratic primary in an affluent Manhattan House district has drawn national attention for its bold-faced candidates. But the impact of the race is likely more far-reaching on the future of AI, as the contest has become a proxy battle in a much larger war between big-spending tech giants. Democratic state assemblymen Micah Lasher, 44, and Alex Bores, 35, lead a crowded primary race Tuesday to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler, a 17-term Democratic congressman and top antagonist to President Donald Trump during his first term. The Democratic field drew early national attention for attracting Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of President John F. Kennedy, and George Conway, a former Republican lawyer who had previously been married to Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. But it has evolved into a spendathon -- one of the most expensive House primaries in state history -- between super PACs with ties to rival AI firms, OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as billionaire backers each supporting Lasher and Bores. Schlossberg and Conway fell in polling as campaigns and allies spent at least $26 million on television ads that put AI at the center of the race. In this article What's at stake Return to menu Bores became a target of groups funded by investors behind OpenAI after shepherding a high-profile AI regulatory bill through the state assembly last year. His RAISE Act created new safety standards for AI developers including multimillion dollar penalties in New York state. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed the bill into law in December, and Bores vowed to advance similar legislation federally if elected to Congress. "Congress is completely missing the boat," Bores said in an interview. "This is an issue that surveys show Americans trust neither party in right now, and they see it affecting their daily lives." The ads attacked Bores for his past donations from Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and his past employment with data-analytics firm Palantir, whose reputation has soured among Democrats for its work on immigration enforcement. Bores said in an interview that he left Palantir over the firm's decision to sell its technology to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement track migrants. But the attacks on Bores wound up working in his favor, raising his profile and drawing attention to his work regulating AI. Bores was able to build an unusual coalition of organized labor, progressives and pro-Israel moderates -- supporters who have found themselves on opposing sides in other primaries -- to rally around AI regulation. "It became the proof point for how much Alex scared them in the district," Jesse Ferguson, a senior strategist supporting the Bores campaign, said of the anti-Bores AI super PACs spending in the race. "They weren't the empire crushing the rebellion. They were the Death Star that proved the rebellion was worth joining." Bores has also had deep-pocketed super PACs in his corner, including AI interests -- something the OpenAI allies gleefully point out. A super PAC funded heavily by Anthropic, Open AI's most prominent rival, has spent more than $4 million in television ads supporting Bores, according to AdImpact. Total spending from Anthropic's allies for Bores exceeds $10 million. Crypto tycoon Chris Larsen also committed more than $3 million to support Bores. Anthropic and OpenAI have engaged in a bitter rivalry that has included competing political funding throughout the midterms. OpenAI has supported federal regulations for AI, while Anthropic has backed state-level legislation akin to Bores's. Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez, a spokesperson for a super PAC supported by Anthropic, cast the group as on the side of regulation and "candidates who champion AI guardrails shouldn't have to stand alone against Big Tech." Leading the Future, the group backed by OpenAI investors, said in a statement that "any claim that we oppose regulation is flat wrong." "The public record clearly shows that support for Alex Bores from Anthropic and its allies began well before Leading the Future entered the race," the group said. "Leading the Future is proud to stand against that unprecedented effort and for a transparent, national AI framework that serves workers, families, and the country." Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who supports Lasher, said the spending from Anthropic's side showed that the primary was not about opposing Bores over AI regulation but the longstanding competition between the two AI firms and controlling market share. Lasher and Bores are largely aligned on regulating AI, he said. The primary has differed from others in the city, which have become test cases of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's political influence with large divisions over Israel. Mamdani, who is a constituent of the 12th district, has declined to endorse in the race, and Bores and Lasher hold similarly supportive views of Israel. Bores is nonetheless coopting some of Mamdani's anti-establishment fervor, casting Lasher as an establishment pick. Lasher, a close confidant of Nadler, has the endorsement of much of the state's Democratic political class, including Hochul, former mayor Mike Bloomberg, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, Hoylman-Sigal and Nadler himself. He has spent decades organizing for major Democratic figures in the city going back to high school, including for Nadler and Hoylman-Sigal. Bloomberg, whom Lasher worked for as director of state legislative affairs, is one of the biggest spenders in the race, pouring in more than $8 million in TV ads for Lasher. Nadler said part of the reason he was stepping down from Congress was "because I knew that I had a very good successor in Micah." Lasher's backers sneer at the idea that he is an establishment candidate. Hoylman-Sigal said it was a common attack from rivals who don't get the backing of an incumbent. "There is no establishment," Nadler declared. Nadler, whom Hoylman-Sigal described as the "OG of Manhattan politics," remains popular in the district, which includes some of the richest and most conservative (by Manhattan standards) parts of the island. Large swaths of the district on the city's Upper East and Upper West sides voted for former governor Andrew M. Cuomo in last year's mayoral election. Lasher, who supported Bores's AI bill in the state legislature, contends that he would be the true advocate for AI regulation in Congress. "If my biggest endorsement is Jerry Nadler and [Bores's] biggest endorsement is Anthropic and the crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, I think the voters are going to trust Jerry Nadler," Lasher said.

An AI proxy war could reshape Congress -- before Congress reshapes AI

Groups tied to the artificial intelligence industry are flooding money into the midterms in hopes of shaping future AI regulation. Around the country, groups associated with AI and tech are trying to influence elections from Senate races to local offices, even as Americans register increasing discomfort with the technology's ramifications for jobs, energy bills and society. AI-focused super PACs have already spent $43.3 million on congressional races this cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending. The campaign blitz comes against a backdrop of bipartisan consensus that Congress needs to set more rules governing AI and the powerful companies developing it. Yet efforts to advance federal legislation have so far stalled. The massive spending and heated rhetoric reveal a great deal about the contours of Silicon Valley's political fault lines and competing visions of what the future should look like. "This type of spending really helps shape who is at the table and what perspectives they are bringing into those conversations when new legislation is crafted," said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit that seeks to reduce the influence of money in politics. "It's rewriting the playbook for how industries are trying to exert their influence in Washington and in states across the country," he said. The proxy war in Central Park An early test of how this strategy could pay off will come Tuesday in a congressional primary in New York City that has drawn more than $15 million in AI-backed spending both for and against Alex Bores, a former Palantir employee who is pushing to more strictly rein in the industry. Bores, 35, is a New York state assemblyman who co-sponsored the state's Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, legislation that requires AI companies to report safety incidents and publish information on their safeguards. In October 2025, he entered the Democratic primary race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York's 12th Congressional District. It spans the heart of Manhattan, north from 14th Street to the top of Central Park, and has the highest per-capita income in the country. The primary race -- which will likely determine who replaces Nadler in the Democratic stronghold -- has become a major battle in the proxy war over federal AI regulation. After Bores entered the race, super PACs tied to investors in ChatGPT maker OpenAI unleashed a torrent of spending aimed at torpedoing his campaign. An early anti-Bores ad argued laws like New York's RAISE Act would create a "chaotic patchwork of state rules that would crush innovation." Rival Anthropic, an AI company founded by OpenAI defectors that has called for more regulation, is backing super PACs countering the OpenAI-aligned groups' assault on Bores with millions of dollars of their own. Groups linked to the two companies have collectively spent more than $15 million on pro- and anti-Bores messaging, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The torrent of ads, mailers and texts appears to have primarily served to raise Bores' profile in a crowded field ahead of the Jun. 23 primary. Corporate rivals fund opposing super PACs The Bores contest is the most visible arena in which the AI sector's intramural rivalries are spilling into politics. In their quest to win the AI race, OpenAI and Anthropic compete for everything from funding and staff to customers. They're both planning massive initial public offerings later this year. And they are locked in an ideological feud over how AI should be built, commercialized and governed, which shapes their respective views on the role of regulation. On one side of the political fight is Leading the Future, mainly funded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which is an OpenAI investor, and OpenAI's president and co-founder Greg Brockman. Its stated mission is to "oppose policies that stifle innovation, enable China to gain global AI superiority, or make it harder to bring AI's benefits into the world, and those who support that agenda." It argues for a national approach to setting AI standards and safeguards. Leading the Future has raised more than $75 million. It's already spent $23.5 million on dozens of races from Texas and Georgia to Illinois and Montana through a network of super PACs including Think Big and American Mission, according to OpenSecrets' tally of federal filings. The group has also funded a PAC supporting Republican Byron Donalds' campaign for governor of Florida, a hotspot in the state-level fight over AI regulation. On the other side is Public First, positioned in direct opposition to Leading the Future. In February, Anthropic announced it was contributing $20 million to a related nonprofit, Public First Action, that "opposes federal efforts to freeze state progress without adequate federal safeguards." Anthropic said the company didn't want to "sit on the sidelines" while AI policies are developed and warned that "vast resources have flowed to political organizations" that oppose greater AI regulation. Public First-affiliated PACs, including Jobs and Democracy and Defending Our Values, have spent $16.6 million so far on congressional races in states including North Carolina, Texas and Utah, according to OpenSecrets. The political antagonism "really mirrors the corporate competition between OpenAI and Anthropic" and their differing approaches to AI development and safety, said Molly White, an independent researcher and tech industry critic. AI spending is also about sending a message OpenAI investors and Anthropic aren't the only AI interests betting that spending on campaigns will reap political rewards. Facebook owner Meta is funding super PACs aimed at shaping AI policy in Texas and California, and both Google and Meta are backing another super PAC focused on California state legislative races. Billionaire crypto investor Chris Larsen, who has spent millions on local and state races in California this year, launched a super PAC called You Can Push Back that's spent nearly $2 million backing Bores in New York. Silicon Valley has long injected money into politics, but in previous cycles that came primarily through individual donations from executives and via corporate PACs, said Katie Harbath, founder of the tech consulting firm Anchor Change, who spent a decade working on public policy at Facebook. The AI-connected groups' more aggressive political involvement is "a real experiment this time to see if that sort of money can really sway any of these races in the way that these companies want it to," she said. To White, the AI industry's willingness to flex its financial muscle is about more than one candidate's victory or loss. "If Alex Bores is elected, one fairly junior congressperson is not likely to have an enormous impact on the ultimate AI regulation that might be passed in the next couple of years," she said. "But I do think that one of the major focuses of these super PACs is really about sending a message to other candidates who might be thinking about coming out in support of stricter AI regulation or coming out in opposition," White continued. "Whichever PAC is on the winning side will use those victories as sort of a threat towards other candidates." Congress remains stalled on AI regulation -- for now The concentration of wealth and power in a handful of giant AI companies has spawned critics across the political divide and at the federal, state and local levels. While the industry is responsible for the lion's share of stock market gains in recent years and a sizable portion of the growth in U.S. gross domestic product, concerns are mounting over the effects of AI on jobs, the environmental and economic costs of massive data centers and the safety of powerful AI models. But in Congress, momentum on AI legislation -- along with nearly everything else -- remains stalled. Despite bipartisan support to do something about the technology, lawmakers are still hashing out how to even take up the issue. "So far, the key battle lines have been whether to spend much time on federal AI legislation at all," said Adam Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of center-left tech industry policy group Chamber of Progress. Kovacevich says there is interest in the idea of federal standards governing AI development and deployment, but "there seems to be little energy being spent on actually writing those standards before this year's midterm elections." "Almost everyone in Washington agrees AI is transformative and requires some kind of policy response," said Nicole Alvarez, a senior tech policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, which advocates for progressive ideas. "The real fight," Alvarez said, "is what governance looks like." An ongoing fight The AI industry is contributing even more money in the hopes that when regulation eventually comes, they can play a big role in shaping it. On top of the tens of millions of dollars AI-linked groups have spent so far in this election cycle, AI firms are investing heavily in lobbying -- which means the spigot of dollars will keep flowing after the new Congress is sworn in in January. In 2025, OpenAI, Meta, Google parent Alphabet, and AI chipmaker Nvidia spent a combined $50.9 million lobbying members of Congress, according to a review of federal reports by Issue One. Those numbers are likely to rise this year. Anthropic more than quadrupled its lobbying spending to $1.56 million in the first quarter from a year ago, while OpenAI nearly doubled its outlays to $1.02 million, according to Issue One's analysis. "As companies continue to see a return on investment for those types of expenditures, they are likely to continue to spend more and more and more," said Issue One's Beckel. The outcome of this summer's primaries and the fall's general election will have a big impact on the shape any legislation takes. Even if Republicans maintain control of Congress, the de facto 60-vote threshold in the Senate to pass most legislation means that AI regulation will almost certainly require bipartisan compromise. Lawmakers will also have to contend with a growing share of the public who feel queasy about AI. "If our goal as a country is to advance AI development and deployment and achieve leadership in this space," Alvarez said, "then we cannot exclude the public from the conversation." "Undermining their trust is going to lead to them being hesitant to accept this technology in their everyday lives," she said.

AI Companies Are Trying to Seize Control of Elections

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech With trillions of dollars on the line, it should come as no surprise that tech companies are spending gobs of cash on the upcoming US midterm elections. What is surprising is the scale of electoral financing, as certain newly-founded AI super PACs are now spending more on candidates than the candidates are spending on themselves. According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, political finance groups linked to tech companies including OpenAI and Anthropic are already some of the top spenders in the 2026 elections. So far, they've distributed a combined $37 million on various campaigns, a number which is expected to skyrocket as November draws closer (and those are just the ones we know about, as numerous tech-backed PACs are alleged to have evaded federal reporting requirements.) While one might expect these companies to flock to the typically pro-business and small-government Republican party, an LA Times infographic shows that they're cynically playing both sides. ChatGPT maker OpenAI, for example, is heavily linked to both the American Mission PAC, which has donated $8 million to Republicans, and the Think Big PAC, which has spent $14.1 million on Democrats so far. Anthropic, meanwhile, is linked to the Jobs and Democracy PAC and Defending Our Values PAC, which gave $11 million and $5.2 million to Democrats and Republicans, respectively. As former Google public policy executive Adam Kovacevich told the Times, AI companies are quickly becoming "comfortable with using their power to achieve a political goal." Zooming out a bit, funding both sides of the aisle makes tactical sense, at least if you're an AI company. One of the key benefits of backing mainstream political contenders seems to be the crushing effect it has on non-partisan candidates, who may come into office with populist ideas like regulating generative AI or restricting data center construction. These include figures like Al Olszewski, a candidate who styled himself as a "grassroots conservative" in Montana's Republican primary. While Olszewski had the benefit of running as an incumbent, he got walloped in the party primary after a super PAC affiliated with OpenAI's co-founder spent nearly $900,000 backing his opponent. "There was no way as a grassroots person that I could compete with that kind of money," Olszewski told the Times. "I got crushed."

OpenAI's backers spent $7.6 million to destroy a state legislator. Anthropic spent $10 million to rescue him | Fortune

When New York Assemblyman Alex Bores decided to seek a promotion to Congress, the technology industry leapt into his way. Angered by Bores' legislation regulating artificial intelligence, a political group underwritten by investors in OpenAI spent more than $7 million on ads designed to crush the former computer engineer, who's running in the ultracompetitive June 23 Democratic primary for a Manhattan-based U.S. House district. That group, Leading the Future, counts titans of Silicon Valley, major venture capitalists and alumni of President Donald Trump's Republican administration among its donors. Bores complained about the spending, warning that it would deter other state lawmakers and members of Congress from trying to rein in the fast-growing industry. He swiftly became a nationally recognized cautionary tale of an underdog politician battling against an overwhelming tide of tech money. But then another wing of Silicon Valley rode to Bores' rescue. Political groups partly funded by Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude, have spent more than $10 million boosting Bores' campaign. Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, an Anthropic investor, has pledged another $3.5 million. Bores' race is now a proxy battle for two competing visions of how government should treat the technology industry and artificial intelligence. Adding to the tension is Bores' past working for Palantir, which he quit during Trump's first term over what he said were concerns about the tech company's work on immigration enforcement. "The lines are being drawn, and this primary is very much an expression of that," said Morten Bay, a research fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California. "The core divide is regulation -- whether you're for or against it." Tech industry is at odds over regulation The schism mirrors a similar one running through Silicon Valley. Some tech titans, like Elon Musk, have embraced Trump and his movement, as well as the idea of limiting or eliminating most government regulations. But a large chunk of the industry remains traditionally Democratic, in favor of some government safeguards. Leading the Future -- funded by major Trump donors like OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale -- has spent $7.6 million through a subsidiary against Bores. The political action committee, formed last year as the artificial intelligence industry's main political muscle, says that it supports AI regulation but that Congress should take the lead. The group contends that Bores is the only candidate who is bought and paid for. "As we have said from day one, Anthropic, its investors and the dark-money groups it funds would spend millions to send Alex Bores to Congress, and that is exactly what has happened," said Josh Vlasto, a co-lead of Leading the Future. Bores points to his own record crafting AI safety legislation for how he'd tackle the issue at the federal level. The regulation he spearheaded, known as the RAISE Act, is considered among the most sweeping attempts by a state to control the new technology. It requires major AI companies to file reports about safeguards against "catastrophic" risks that could injure more than 50 people, like the previously only-in-science-fiction scenario of AI melting down nuclear power plants or engineering new viruses. Leading the Future opposed Bores' original proposal but acceded to a modified version that was signed into law. But the PAC has made clear it hasn't forgiven Bores and describes his views as extreme. Bores pushed strict rules in New York The RAISE Act is the sort of regulation that would be nullified by Trump's proposed AI framework, which would bar states from enacting their own AI rules so Congress could create a national standard. However, there's been little movement in Washington to do that, which has left the industry essentially unregulated at the federal level. Leading the Future's refrain that Bores is a tool of OpenAI's business competitor has been taken up by Bores' many rivals in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. His 12th Congressional District stretches across upper and midtown Manhattan and is one of the wealthiest and most Democratic districts in the country. At recent debates, Bores' opponents have claimed he's simply a pawn in a corporate battle. "You're in the middle of a civil war between OpenAI and Anthropic. It has nothing to do with standing up to Trump's mega donors," said Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy family heir and social media personality also running for the seat. Bores and his allies contend his opponents are simply trying to confuse voters. "This race started with AI megadonors pledging $10 million to stop me because they were afraid after I passed the strongest AI safety law in the country," Bores said in a statement. "Since then, everyone who supports AI regulation and safety -- from teachers to tech workers, from AI safety advocates to progressive activists -- has united to take the other side. This isn't one company versus another, this is one ideology versus another: regulate the powerful and protect people, or don't." Some tech groups are backing Bores Brad Carson, a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, runs the political action committee Public First, which has spent more than $6 million to back Bores through a subsidiary. The committee was created explicitly to counter Leading the Future and was an outgrowth of a nonprofit Carson helped fund to push for AI regulation. In an interview, Carson bristled at the suggestion that the enterprise was simply an Anthropic tool and said it had raised $30 million from nongovernmental organizations before Anthropic made a $20 million contribution. "It's not like two billionaires fighting it out," Carson said. "It's two philosophical movements fighting it out. All of them have wealthy supporters." Chris Larsen, a cryptocurrency billionaire who's pledged about $3.5 million on Bores' behalf, said in a statement that his decision to get involved "resulted directly from OpenAI's threats to make examples of candidates who seek common-sense regulation." Bay, the research fellow, noted that the district is an odd one for the more Trump-friendly groups to invest in because it's so liberal. Indeed, Bores' main rival for the nomination, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, supported Bores' RAISE Act. Carson said his group wants Bores to win but is comfortable with Lasher. "He's very good on AI issues too," Carson said. "We win either way."

'People-powered' super PAC launches to counter AI industry spending

A new political organization launched Thursday to "confront the efforts" of the pro-AI super PAC Leading the Future (LTF), which has poured millions of dollars into congressional primaries across the country. The super PAC, titled Guardrails Alliance, said it will represent parents, unions and tech workers to "follow the money" and "expose how a small group of Trump-aligned AI billionaires is trying to buy our elections." The super PAC also kicked off its first ad buy Thursday, spending $250,000 in support of New York Assembly member Alex Bores in New York's 12th Congressional District race. Bores is one of Leading the Future's main targets, spending more than $7 million against his campaign. LTF, launched last year, has received funding from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, AI firm Perplexity and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. It typically supports candidates who will help advance a "positive, forward-looking agenda for AI innovation" in Washington. The Hill reached out to LTF for comment. It comes just days before the New York Democratic primary to replace incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler. According to polling from Decision Desk HQ, Bores is neck-and-neck with New York state assembly member Micah Lasher, while Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President Kennedy, and George Conway, a former Republican and frequent President Trump critic turned Democrat, trail behind. Guardrails Alliance joins a handful of other super PACs backing Bores in the face of LTF's attacks ads against the former computer engineer. Other AI-safety spending groups supporting Bores this cycle include Public First, launched by former Reps. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Brad Carson (D-Okla.), and Dream NYC, which framed Bores as someone who will "stand up to Trump's billionaire allies." You Can Push Back, a more recent super PAC, received $3.5 million from cryptocurrency executive Chris Larsen to support Bores last month.