In brief
- Top AI firms and tech leaders, including Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, unveiled a $100 million fund to back pro-AI candidates.
- The fund, which mirrors crypto PAC Fairshake, will target races in California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio this year before moving to federal contests and the 2026 midterms.
- Supporters say the effort is needed to secure U.S. leadership in AI and to push back against policies that could slow innovation.
A handful of America’s most powerful AI companies, investors and tech entrepreneurs announced Monday the creation of a $100 million political spending fund aimed to support candidates “aligned with the pro-AI agenda” in state and federal races over the next two years.
Leading the Future shares much DNA with similar political spending operations used by the crypto industry. The AI fund is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, one of the core contributors to Fairshake—-the $300 million pro-crypto PAC that successfully upended the 2024 election. Both Leading the Future and Fairshake are also helmed by the same political strategist, Josh Vlasto.
Other backers of Leading the Future include OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ron Conway, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and Perplexity.
Leading the Future plans to get involved in primary and general elections at both the state and federal level, and will oppose candidates who do not support a “pro-innovation” agenda ensuring the United States’ global dominance in AI, the group said.
The organization intends to, through a network of super PACs and nonprofits, begin spending this year on state races in California, New York, Illinois, and Ohio—hotbeds of AI development in the United States. It will then expand to federal races ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
A source familiar with the fund’s operations told Decrypt that the success of pro-crypto political spending groups like Fairshake offered a blueprint for AI leaders to now follow.
AI and crypto, though, while both emergent tech industries with deep pockets, are two different beasts in the policy arena. Going into 2024, crypto was struggling, with a slew of scandals plummeting the industry to an all-time low level in political salience. A historic political spending spree reversed those fortunes entirely, partly by directing ire squarely at easily identifiable enemies like then-SEC chair Gary Gensler and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
AI, on the other hand, does not currently have its own version of a Gensler or Warren to target. The industry is a firmly ascendant cause in the second Trump administration, and no contingent of the Democratic Party has staked out positions in opposition, as once occurred with crypto.
But crypto’s remarkable political spending success story didn’t just influence election outcomes. It also appears to have put substantial pressure on lawmakers to quickly pass legislation favorable to the industry. Amid hyper-partisan tensions in Washington, Congress passed a major crypto bill at breakneck speed, with crucial support from Fairshake-backed candidates.
When asked whether any lawmakers currently in office should be considered “anti-AI”—or if not, what the purpose of Leading the Future then is, a spokesperson for Andreessen Horowitz referred Decrypt to an X post made this morning by Collin McCune, the venture firm’s head of government affairs.
“Policymakers in Washington and our state capitals are weighing thousands of proposals right now that could make it impossible to build,” McCune said. “The only way to counter entrenched interests and outdated thinking is to make sure builders have a voice at the table.”
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