Silicon Valley AI political groups turn on each other in the 2026 election

retained text

Silicon Valley's bid to dominate artificial intelligence politics has devolved into a fight with itself.
With one week until the midterm election, political groups favoring faster AI development and lighter, more uniform rules have spent roughly $8 million in general-election congressional races, besting groups pushing for stronger safeguards and more room for states to regulate that have spent about $6.9 million, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings through Oct. 20.
In Florida's 25th Congressional District, that split has produced a direct face-off. During the primary, Think Big, an affiliate of Leading the Future, the main super PAC network pushing faster AI development and lighter regulation, spent $310,000 supporting Democrat Jared Moskowitz, whose district changed after Florida redrew its congressional map ahead of the 2026 election. On the other side, Defending Our Values, a super PAC favoring stricter safety guardrails and state-level authority, dropped almost $857,000 to boost Republican Scott Singer and an additional $740,000 to keep one of his primary opponents from being elected.
Now, Moskowitz and Singer face off in the general election.
It's a microcosm of the breakdown in Silicon Valley's bid to build a unified AI political machine. Both sides favor AI innovation and agree on the need for guardrails, but they remain locked in a costly tug-of-war over which candidates to back — and which will best align with their preferred deployment speed, regulatory reach and balance of state power.
Electing more allies could give either camp an edge in shaping AI policy in the next Congress, even as the feud risks weakening Silicon Valley's clout.
"Everyone supports some form of regulation. It's just a debate about how much," said Bruce Freed, president and co-founder of the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability and a former chief investigator for the Senate banking committee. "Money is flowing in all directions to be in the driver's seat of what happens."
CNBC identified federal committees aligned with each camp and totaled their FEC-reported independent expenditures supporting or opposing congressional candidates. The analysis excludes state races and nonprofit advocacy spending.
The crypto playbook
This was not the plan. The model was cryptocurrency.
Fairshake and its affiliated pro-crypto super PACs, backed by Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz, spent more than $130 million during the 2024 election cycle, according to FEC filings. Candidates it supported won 53 of 58 races, a 91% success rate, according to crypto publication CoinDesk.
AI investors took note. In August 2025, Leading the Future launched with more than $100 million in commitments from tech heavyweights including Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, and Perplexity and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
Co-led by Josh Vlasto, who worked for Fairshake last election cycle, the network deployed a Democratic PAC, Think Big, and a Republican PAC, American Mission, to support candidates aligned with faster AI development and opposition to a patchwork of state regulations.
The message was clear: Back AI's agenda or risk millions being spent against you.
"The AI industry announced last year that they were going to rerun the crypto industry playbook by coming in swinging with oodles of money in order to bully lawmakers into submission," said Sacha Haworth, founder and executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit watchdog that advocates for stronger regulation of Big Tech and AI.
At first, it worked. In the cycle's first major primaries in March, three candidates heavily backed by American Mission — Jessica Steinmann in Texas, Chris Gober in Texas and Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina — won their Republican contests after the group spent more than $500,000 supporting each, according to FEC filings.
But a rival infrastructure was already taking shape. Anthropic committed $20 million to Public First Action in February and another $20 million in July, giving the safeguards camp a major financial backer. Anthropic says its money is restricted to policy and public education and cannot fund candidate elections. Still, separately funded super PACs tied to Public First Action have spent millions advancing similar priorities.
The clash burst into view in New York’s 12th District Democratic primary. Think Big spent $8.3 million, according to FEC filings, trying to defeat state Assemblymember Alex Bores, who authored major state AI safety legislation. The Anthropic-backed Jobs and Democracy PAC countered with about $15 million to support him, while allied safety groups spent millions more, according CNBC's analysis.
Think Big and Jobs and Democracy spent a combined $23.3 million, about 40% of the two camps' primary spending nationwide, according to the analysis.
Bores ultimately lost to Micah Lasher, 39% to 35%, giving Think Big a tactical victory.
"They helped light a flame under the backlash that's now fueling so much of the midterm elections," Haworth said. "The race showed that spending against safety-first candidates could now trigger a counterattack from within the industry itself."
The money slows
The fight has carried into the general election, but the pace of spending plummeted.
Safeguards-focused groups have spent $825,000 this fall opposing two Republicans who benefited from Leading the Future-aligned spending during the primaries, according to CNBC's analysis of FEC filings. The two races alone account for more than one-sixth of the safeguards camp's general-election opposition spending.
Guardrails Alliance reported spending $412,500 apiece, according to FEC filings, against Republican House candidates Jay Feely in Arizona and Aaron Flint in Montana, both of whom benefited from Leading the Future-aligned spending in their primaries. It also reported about $412,000 against Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez in California, whom Leading the Future endorsed but did not report spending to support, according to CNBC's analysis.
"The big AI groups still believe that their money can help influence elections even if it's just a couple in November," Haworth said.
Yet the overall flow of AI campaign money has slowed since the primaries.
Leading the Future's network reported roughly $26 million in primary independent expenditures, compared with about $8 million in general-election races. Safeguards-focused groups reported about $32.1 million in primary spending and $6.9 million in general-election contests. The groups reported another roughly $5.5 million in runoff and special-election spending.
Combined, about 74% of the roughly $78.5 million they have spent on federal candidates this cycle went toward primary races, according to CNBC's analysis.
Some of that decline reflects the smaller universe of competitive November races. But the slowdown has coincided with AI becoming a more difficult political sell.
A new CNBC All-America Economic Survey found 52% of registered voters said companies should pause development of advanced AI until Congress passes regulations, compared with 32% who favored moving ahead. Sixty-three percent said they would oppose an AI data center within 10 miles of their home.
“When evaluating risk versus reward right now, the backlash is just too big,” said Freed, of the Center for Political Accountability.
“AI executives and groups spent heavily in the primaries, so they likely achieved what they set out to do in most races. At this point, there's no real downside to scaling back,” Freed said.
Some major donors have gone further.
The Brockmans gave $25 million to Leading the Future. But amid objections from OpenAI employees to the group's tactics, OpenAI's chief strategy officer acknowledged internally that the company was taking "reputational hits," according to Semafor.
The Brockmans later abandoned plans for another $25 million contribution, according to The New York Times.
Meta has retreated as well. Political groups it funded returned $25 million this summer — $22 million from the AI-promoting American Technology Excellence Project and $3 million from its California operation — according to IRS and state filings. The refunds cut its planned $65 million state-level political push by nearly 40%, to about $40 million. The Times first reported the refunds.
"Something's clearly not working," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Politico earlier this month. "I don't think spending money on politics is what's going to make people feel better about it."

document fetched 2026-10-28 02:51 · canonical https://cnbc.com/2026/10/27/ai-political-spending-silicon-valley-election.html