OpenAI’s president and Andreessen Horowitz are helping lead a $100 million Silicon Valley push against tougher AI laws and the lawmakers behind them
OpenAI’s president and Andreessen Horowitz are helping lead a $100 million Silicon Valley push against tougher AI laws and the lawmakers behind them
Role:
Silicon Valley is seeking to block cumbersome AI regulation with a new fund backed
The new $100 million super PAC network, dubbed Leading the Future (LTF), will use campaign donations and digital ads to support friendly Democrats and Republicans on both the and national and state level with an eye on the 2026 midterms. It will also oppose politicians that the group sees as holding back the AI industry.
“LTF and its affiliated organizations will oppose policies that stifle innovation, enable China to gain global AI superiority, or make it harder to bring AI’s benefits into the world, and those who support that agenda,” according to a press release.
The group’s position will mostly align with that of White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sacks has criticized “AI doomers” and has previously said the private sector will lead the U.S. to victory over China in the AI race.
“There is a vast force out there that’s looking to slow down AI deployment, prevent the American worker from benefiting from the U.S. leading in global innovation and job creation and erect a patchwork of regulation,” said the group’s leaders Josh Vlasto and Zac Moffatt in a joint statement to WSJ. “This is the ecosystem that is going to be the counterforce going into next year.”
Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI were both previously supportive of a 10-year moratorium on states passing their own AI regulations that was proposed in the version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed
In a post on X, Andreessen Horowitz’s head of government affairs, Collin McCune, said through LTF the firm aims to support politicians who understand the promise of AI.
“If we don’t have the right policies, we risk ceding the future of AI—and with it, America’s economic strength and national security,” McCune wrote.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
LTF hopes to parallel the success of the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which counted Andreessen Horowitz among its largest donors. In 2024, Fairshake played a role in unseating former U.S. Senator and crypto skeptic Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) as well as spending $10 million to oppose Katie Porter’s senate primary bid in California, which she ultimately lost to U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Vlasto, one of the group’s leaders, is also a spokesman and media strategist for Fairshake and has political experience working for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The group’s other leader, Moffatt, previously worked as a digital director for Mitt Romney’s campaign and is the CEO of conservative consulting and public relations firm Targeted Victory, which counts the Republic National Committee as a client.
The pro-AI super PAC will also help counter the narrative of pro-AI regulation spread
Leading the Future will start its operations this year in New York, California, Illinois, and Ohio, according to a press release. Other LTF supporters are VC and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, AI software company Perplexity, and angel investor Ron Conway.
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