Big Tech's AI Civil War Just Went Political

The same companies building AI are now bankrolling the politicians who will regulate it. This is no longer a technology story. It's a power story.

Here's the scene: a New York Assembly member named Alex Bores — author of a bill requiring major AI developers to disclose safety protocols — is being carpet-bombed with attack ads from a pro-AI super PAC called Leading the Future. The group has raised $125 million from backers including Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. Last week, Anthropic-backed political committee Public First Action fired back, spending $450,000 to support Bores in his congressional race for New York's 12th district.

Two AI companies. One congressional seat. $125 million versus $20 million. Same stated goal — a strong American AI industry — with completely opposite views on how to get there.

Welcome to the 2026 AI midterms.

The Fault Lines Are Real, and They've Been Building

This didn't happen overnight. OpenAI and Anthropic spent $2.99 million and $3.13 million, respectively, on federal lobbying in 2025 — their highest annual outlays to date. C-Suite Insider

But the gloves came off this February when Anthropic publicly committed $20 million to Public First Action, a bipartisan PAC advocating for AI regulation, explicitly positioning itself against the deregulatory bloc.

The philosophical divide maps cleanly onto the companies' founding stories. Anthropic was created by Dario and Daniela Amodei after they left OpenAI over safety concerns. Every product decision, every public statement, every dollar of political spending carries that origin. OpenAI, meanwhile, has moved steadily toward a lighter-regulatory posture — reportedly asking the Trump administration to block state AI rules in exchange for government access to its models.

OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane told CNN the company won't be making PAC donations anytime soon because it wants to retain control of its political spending. CNN

That's a carefully worded non-denial. Greg Brockman's personal involvement in Leading the Future — a group that has already spent $1.1 million on ads attacking a pro-transparency candidate — tells a different story.

The White House Has Already Picked a Side

The regulatory terrain isn't neutral. Trump signed an executive order late last year building a national AI framework designed to override stricter state laws, with a DOJ task force empowered to challenge state regulations in court. States that resist could lose federal funding. White House AI czar David Sacks accused Anthropic of running "a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering" — and called the company "principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." CNBC

For context: a Gallup survey from September 2025 found 80% of Americans wanted safety rules for AI, even if it meant slowing development. A Quinnipiac poll found 69% think the government is not doing enough to regulate AI. Implicator

The public opinion math favors oversight. The political money math, at least for now, does not — Leading the Future's war chest is more than six times the size of Public First's.

California passed seven AI laws in 2025. Colorado's AI Act takes effect mid-2026. Texas has its own restrictions already in place. The state-level patchwork that the deregulatory camp calls chaos is, in another reading, democracy working faster than federal paralysis.

What This Means for Anyone Building on AI

If you're a marketer, a growth leader, or a business using AI tools — which in 2026 means almost everyone — this isn't background noise. The regulatory outcome of the 2026 midterms will directly shape what AI companies can build, what data they can use, how they must disclose risk, and what liability they carry when things go wrong.

The companies funding these campaigns have billions at stake in the outcome. So do their users. In an earlier era, OpenAI's Sam Altman came to Washington to support broad AI regulation. That position has since shifted considerably. Axios

Companies change their positions when the money and the competitive stakes get large enough. Expecting any AI vendor's political stance to reflect your business interests is a category error.

Understanding which AI tools carry genuine transparency commitments — and which are lobbying against the right to know what those tools are doing — is now a legitimate part of vendor evaluation. Building a growth strategy that treats AI governance as a real business variable, not a compliance footnote, is no longer optional.

The companies building these systems are now openly contesting who gets to set the rules. The least the rest of us can do is pay attention.

Winsome Marketing helps growth leaders navigate the AI space with clear eyes — not vendor spin. Let's talk.