Sawt Falasteen - AI's bitter rivalry heads to Washington

With the artificial intelligence industry rapidly advancing, Democrats and Republicans alike have found themselves squeezed between a powerful tech lobby flush with cash and a broadly wary public.

Leading the charge on the industry side is Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC backed by OpenAI's Greg Brockman, venture capital behemoth Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and AI search company Perplexity.

Brockman, OpenAI's longtime president, and his wife Anna are also among the largest recent donors to President Donald Trump's political coffers, to the tune of $25 million last year.

Super PACs are political organizations in the United States that can raise and spend unlimited funds for media campaigns, but not give directly to candidates.

Leading the Future raised $125 million in the second half of 2025, according to official filings, and is co-led by Josh Vlasto -- a former adviser to Fairshake, the crypto-aligned super PAC whose playbook Leading the Future is looking to repeat.

That playbook proved devastatingly effective in the 2024 election cycle, when Fairshake poured money into races against candidates skeptical of cryptocurrency.

Now spooked by the prospect of a repeat in AI, Anthropic has entered the fray.

On Thursday, the company gave $20 million to a competing super PAC, Public First Action, which supports AI guardrails -- effectively setting up a direct fight against Leading the Future.

The group -- whose funders can remain anonymous -- plans to back 30 to 50 candidates from both parties in state and federal races during the midterm cycle.

Founded in 2021 by former AI researchers, Anthropic has grown into a world-leading AI company focused on businesses and software developers.

The company, led by CEO Dario Amodei, is disdained by some in Trump's Washington for its outspoken focus on AI safety and its warnings about the job losses that generative AI could unleash.

The Trump administration has pushed back forcefully, championing a light regulatory touch and giving AI companies free rein to release their latest models without guardrails or pre-release vetting of their products.

White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks recently accused the "left-wing" company of "running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering."

He also accused Anthropic of retaining Democratic-aligned staffers to "lobby for the old Biden AI agenda."

The two groups are also clashing over the Trump administration's repeated — and so far unsuccessful — efforts to ban AI legislation at the state level.

In the absence of federal action, dozens of states have introduced hundreds of proposals to regulate the technology.

- 'Vast resources' -

While not as well financed as its rival, Public First Action argues it has something Leading the Future does not: the backing of public opinion.

Polls show that Americans broadly favor AI safety measures and support a more cautious approach to the technology.

"At present, there are few organized efforts to help mobilize people and politicians who understand what's at stake in AI development," Anthropic said in a statement.

"Instead, vast resources have flowed to political organizations that oppose these efforts."

Amodei has also made visits to Capitol Hill to meet with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren to back a ban on the sending of powerful chip technology from Nvidia to China, something the Trump administration supports.

The battle is already playing out in specific races. In Florida, Leading the Future is preparing to spend millions to support Byron Donalds' campaign for governor as Republicans in the state fight over AI legislation.

In New York, Alex Bores — a pro-AI safety congressional candidate and former Palantir employee — has already faced a barrage of attack ads from the group.

"Crazy populists...could be about to break all of this and we can't let that happen," Palantir co-founder Lonsdale said on CNBC in November, defending Leading the Future's mission to fight AI safety advocates.

M.AbuKhalil--SF-PST