'I got crushed': AI giants are funding ad wars in races across the country

10 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. WASHINGTON — In congressional races across the country, a new crop of super PACs is taking to the air with millions of dollars worth of advertisements to sway voters. “President Trump said it best, ‘Celeste Maloy will never let you down,’” says one advertisement supporting the Utah Republican representative in her upcoming primary election. “Standing up to big pharma, fighting for local jobs, Val Hoyle doesn’t back down,” says an ad backing the Oregon Democratic representative ahead of her primary victory last month. The super PACs have nondescript names — such as Jobs and Democracy PAC and American Mission — and the text is so generic that it almost seems to have been created by artificial intelligence. That isn’t so far off the mark. The AI industry has funded the ads. One network of super PACs is linked to Anthropic, maker of the popular AI tool Claude, and the other to Open AI, maker of ChatGPT. They have been among the most prolific political spenders so far in the 2026 midterm elections, splashing out more than $37 million to date to influence races across the country and making the groups among the biggest outside spenders so far in congressional races. That number could grow exponentially as campaign season heats up closer to the November election — and as the Silicon Valley giants prepare initial pubic offerings that are poised to raise billions of dollars for the companies and their executives. The AI political spending boom comes as emerging technology companies have become increasingly “comfortable with using their power to achieve a political goal,” said Adam Kovacevich, a former Google public policy executive and founder of Chamber of Progress, a technology trade group with a progressive orientation. The leading AI companies have a history. Anthropic was formed by former OpenAI employees who were concerned that the company was less focused on its original mission to safely harness the power of AI. The companies are now the leading drivers of the burgeoning AI industry, and their competing views about how the technology should be regulated are playing out in a wide-ranging political ad spending war that has targeted congressional races in big cities and rural areas alike. OpenAI thinks AI should be regulated solely at the federal level. Anthropic calls for more stringent regulation and supports efforts by states such as New York and California that have passed more aggressive AI laws. The groups spending in these races are super PACs, which are able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in federal races thanks to the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. In some races, the AI-backed political groups have spent more than the candidates they are backing. “There was no way as a grassroots person that I could compete with that kind of money,” said Al Olszewski, whose opponent in a Montana Republican congressional primary beat him by 30 points after getting a boost from $877,000 in ads from a super PAC backed by OpenAI’s co-founder. “I got crushed.” The AI behemoths have emphasized that they are independent from the political groups. One group counts $25 million in support from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, alongside $100 million tied to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms, which holds a large stake in OpenAI. The global policy chief for OpenAI was reportedly involved in conceiving the group. The other side has gotten $20 million from Anthropic and millions more from donors whose identities are not public. This anonymous political cash is commonly known as dark money, and its prevalence is growing. (Los Angeles Times photo illustration; source photos courtesy of the Tech Oversight Project) Advertisement “This has become very normalized now,” said Brendan Glavin, director of insights at OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign spending. “In 2024, we tracked over $1 billion in dark money.” That total was $350 million higher than the previous presidential election. The political activity of these AI companies and executives reflects a dramatic shift from how emerging technology companies have historically engaged with politics. Google, for example, didn’t hire its first in-house Washington lobbyist until after the company had gone public in 2005. “I think that for a long time, the tech industry lobbying strategy was just ‘leave us alone,’” Kovacevich said. He sees the spending by these AI-linked super PACs as following the recent playbook developed by the cryptocurrency industry, which has funded the only network of political groups that has spent more on congressional races this year than those linked to OpenAI. “I think what the crypto industry realized was that there’s n

'I got crushed': AI giants are funding ad wars in races across the country

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'I got crushed': AI giants are funding ad wars in races across the country

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