The Anthropic AI logo is displayed on a mobile phone with a visual digital background.
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Anthropic, the artificial intelligence lab that’s taken heat from the White House for its support of regulations and safety, is putting $20 million into the political arena ahead of the 2026 elections.
The company said on Thursday that it’s donating to Public First Action, a group that’s challenging the AI industry by supporting candidates across the political aisle. The group has just launched six-figure ad buys to back pro-AI regulation candidates Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Pete Ricketts from Nebraska, both Republicans.
Blackburn, a U.S. senator now running for governor of her state, has led kids online safety bills, while Ricketts, who’s running for re-election, introduced legislation this year to limit advanced U.S. chips from being sold to China.
Public First Action is headed by former lawmakers Brad Carson and Chris Stewart. Carson told CNBC in an interview that the group aims to support about 30 to 50 candidates this cycle, and plans to raise between $50 million to $75 million.
That’s far less than the $125 million raised so far by pro-AI PAC Leading the Future, whose donors include tech investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, venture capitalists Joe Lonsdale, angel investor Ron Conway and AI software startup Perplexity.
Carson said public opinion is on his side. A Gallup survey published in September found 80% of respondents wanted rules for AI safety and data security, even if that means slowing development of the technology.
“Leading the future is driven by three billionaires who are close to Donald Trump” with a “particular view of how AI regulation should go and want to kind of buy it off,” Carson said. “We believe it should be more democratically accountable.”
In a blog post, Anthropic said policy is needed to “keep the risks in check” as well as “maintaining meaningful safeguards, promoting job growth, protecting children, and demanding real transparency from the companies building the most powerful AI models.”
David Sacks, President Trump’s AI and crypto czar, criticized Anthropic in October, after Jack Clark, one of the startup’s co-founders and its current head of policy, published an essay called “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear,” which sparked a debate over AI regulation online.
Sacks posted on X that Anthropic was “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.” He said the company is “principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”
Two months later, President Trump signed an executive order issuing a single regulation framework for AI, undermining the power of individual states, namely Democratic-led states like California and New York.
Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that the group launched ad buys to back Pete Ricketts from Nebraska. A previous version misspelled his last name.
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