A visitor looks at an AI sign on an animated screen at Mobile World Congress, the telecommunications industry’s largest annual gathering, in Barcelona.
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OpenAI and Anthropic increased federal lobbying spending to record levels in the second quarter of 2026, as the artificial intelligence industry pours millions of dollars into influencing Washington ahead of midterm elections and highly anticipated IPOs.
Two major AI developers spent a combined $3.17 million in the quarter, a 23% increase from the first three months of the year, according to federal lobbying disclosures.
Anthropic spent $1.97 million from April to June, a 26% increase from the first quarter. OpenAI spent $1.2 million, an increase of nearly 18%. The companies reported lobbying on issues such as cybersecurity, copyright, cloud computing, and defense procurement.
Monitoring lobbying spending, which companies must report to Congress quarterly, is a way to understand which companies and industries are most actively influencing the federal government. Companies interested in developing laws and regulations often increase their spending.
Established technology and defense companies still spend far more overall, but OpenAI and Anthropic are closing the gap with some of Washington’s biggest corporate lobbies.
For example, Anthropic spent a lot of money on lobbying. Nvidia Almost consistent throughout the quarter oracle’s Total amount: 2 million dollars. OpenAI came within $50,000 of Nvidia, which spent $1.25 million.
Both AI companies also sharply increased their spending starting in the second quarter of last year. Anthropic more than doubled and OpenAI almost doubled.
CNBC analysis of five “Magnificent 7” technology companies — meta, Amazon, google, microsoft, apple, Nvidia and tesla – We found that we spent a total of $21.25 million on federal lobbying efforts in the second quarter, which is about the same as the $21.27 million in the first quarter.
Meta remained the biggest spender in the second quarter at $5.99 million, but lobbying spending was down 15% from the first quarter of this year. Amazon’s spending was essentially unchanged at $4.36 million.
Google and Microsoft went in the opposite direction. Google increased its spending by 25% from the previous quarter to $3.57 million, while Microsoft increased its total spending by about 13% to $2.69 million.
Together, these companies increased their lobbying spending by 7.7% compared to the second quarter of 2025 as the tech sector gained attention on Capitol Hill. They reported lobbying on issues such as trade, China, taxes and export controls in the most recent quarter.
Big defense contractors, another technology-heavy sector, are habitually big spenders and cut their total spending compared to the previous quarter.
The eight publicly traded U.S.-based defense contractors ranked by fiscal year 2024 Department of Defense contract obligations in the latest General Services Administration SAM.gov Top 100 Contractors Report spent $19.68 million on federal lobbying in the second quarter, down 3.3% from $20.36 million in the first quarter.
lockheed martin The top of the group was $4.18 million, followed by RTX For $3.86 million, general dynamics For $3.42 million.
RTX cut spending by $600,000, the largest decline in dollar terms from the first quarter to the second quarter among defense companies surveyed by CNBC. L3 Harris They reported the steepest percentage decline in spending, which fell nearly 45% to $530,000. huntington ingalls, Northrop Grumman and Leidos also recorded a double-digit decline.
boeing Of the eight companies, spending increased the most by 13% to $2.77 million.
