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Anthropic, an artificial intelligence lab that has garnered attention from the White House for its support for regulation and safety, is putting $20 million into the political arena ahead of the 2026 election.
The company announced Thursday that it will donate to Public First Action, an organization that is challenging the AI industry by supporting candidates across political lines. The group just launched a six-figure ad buy to support pro-AI regulation candidates Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee and Pete Ricketts in Nebraska, both Republicans.
Mr. Blackburn, a U.S. senator currently running for governor, is leading a child online safety bill, and Mr. Ricketts, who is seeking re-election, introduced a bill this year that would restrict the sale of advanced American-made chips to China.
Public First Action is led by former councilors Brad Carson and Chris Stewart. Carson said in an interview with CNBC that the organization aims to support about 30 to 50 candidates this term and expects to raise between $50 million and $75 million.
This is far less than the $125 million the pro-AI PAC Leading the Future has raised so far. The group’s donors include technology investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, angel investor Ron Conway, and AI software startup Perplexity.
Carson said public opinion is on his side. A Gallup survey released in September found that 80% of respondents want rules for AI safety and data security, even if it means slowing the development of the technology.
“The future is being led by three billionaires who are close to Donald Trump,” Carson said, “and they have a particular view of what AI regulation is going to look like, and they want to kind of buy it.” “We believe that governments should be more democratically accountable.”
Anthropic said in a blog post that policies are needed not only to “contain risks,” but also to “maintain meaningful safeguards, foster job growth, protect children, and demand real transparency from the companies building the most powerful AI models.”
President Trump’s AI and cryptocurrency czar, David Sachs, criticized Anthropic in October after Jack Clark, one of Anthropic’s co-founders and current policy director, published an essay titled “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear,” sparking a debate over AI regulation online.
Sachs wrote in a post on X that Anthropic is “pursuing a sophisticated regulatory acquisition strategy based on fear-mongering.” He said the company is “primarily responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”
Two months later, President Trump signed an executive order issuing a single regulatory framework for AI, weakening the power of individual states, including Democratic-led states like California and New York.
Correction: This article has been corrected to reflect that the group has launched an ad buy to support Pete Ricketts of Nebraska. A previous version misspelled his last name.
Watch: Full CNBC interview with David Sachs
