Powerful AI Super PACs Duel Over the Midterms: ‘This Is a War’

The nastiest relationship in big-money politics is between two super PACs with the same goal: promoting artificial intelligence.

One group is refusing to work with the other, even if they both nominally support the same candidate in some races. Its allies have even pressured members of Congress to distance themselves from the other one.

And the other super PAC? It can’t stop talking smack about its rival.

The wreckage of the civil war includes canceled ad purchases, bruised egos and fearful candidates ducking for cover from the crossfire.

The bad blood between the super PACs comes as powerful Silicon Valley companies race to shape the future of AI regulation. The groups are two of the biggest spenders in this year’s midterm elections, laying out nearly $24 million and promising that over $100 million more is on the way.

Their financial duel is effectively a proxy war between two of the biggest AI companies, Anthropic and OpenAI. One super PAC, Public First, is allied with Anthropic, while the other, Leading the Future, is aligned with OpenAI.

“The two couldn’t have deeper disdain for one another,” said Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist who advises Silicon Valley donors and House campaigns. “This is a war for the future and it will be bloody.”

The AI ​​companies themselves are rivals. Anthropic was formed by a renegade group of OpenAI executives, and the leaders of each firm, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of OpenAI, regularly take verbal shots at each other. The two companies are competing fiercely: for customers, for executives and likely in initial public offerings this year.

Public First and its donors, which indirectly include Anthropic, generally support stricter regulation on AI development, including at the state level. Leading the Future and its donors, including the OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, are more aligned with President Trump’s position, generally pushing for more industry-friendly laws that accelerate AI development.

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)

So far, the war has been uglier among Democrats than Republicans. Democrats are far more divided on AI regulation than Republicans, who have broadly taken a hands-off approach to government oversight. The two super PACs have yet to directly oppose each other in a Republican primary race.

But on the Democratic side, the tensions got so heated in one race that it led to less money for a candidate both super PACs liked.

This winter, the co-head of Public First, Brad Carson, learned that Leading the Future wanted to spend money to help the re-election bid of Representative Valerie Foushee of North Carolina, an embattled Democrat who needed money.

So he did. And Mr. Carson had an intermediate pass along a message to Leading the Future: Don’t you dare.

If Leading the Future got involved, Public First was out, he warned, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the private exchange.

Leading the Future later backed away — never airing a pro-Foushee ad that it had already produced, the people said. Public First spent $1.6 million, Ms. Foushee squeaked by in her primary race and Mr. Carson’s super PAC claimed some credit for the victory.

‘We’re Matter and Antimatter’

Each super PAC explains the dispute as if they were in a schoolyard squabble: The other side started it.

The Anthropic-allied group, Public First, was created as an explicit response to Leading the Future and OpenAI. Last summer, after donors with ties to OpenAI and artificial-intelligence investors announced that they were forming Leading the Future, Mr. Carson and other tech executives, including some at Anthropic, began discussing how to oppose the fledgling super PAC.

One major public first donor, Michael Cohen, said he donated to Mr. Carson’s effort because he was alarmed that Leading the Future had raised more than $100 million.

Mr. Carson, a former two-term Democratic congressman from Oklahoma, said his super PAC’s entire reason for existence was to stop Leading the Future.

“We’re matter and antimatter,” he said. “There’s never been a super PAC at scale that has existed to thwart another super PAC.”

In private conversations, Mr. Carson, who also runs a nonprofit group focused on AI safety, has been stark. He has boasted to others that he will contest every competitive race where Leading the Future spends money by backing an alternative.

Leading the Future insists that Public First has an unhealthy obsession with it.

Josh Vlasto, a Democratic strategist who helps run the OpenAI-aligned super PAC, said that while his group had an expansive policy vision, its rival’s strategy was “very narrow” and “vindictive,” arguing that “it’s beneath the importance of the debate that we are trying to foster.”

Leading the Future’s supposed nonchalance hasn’t stopped the group from regularly drawing attention to negative news coverage about Public First, accusing it of “hypocrisy” and pointing out the opaque nature of its funding from Anthropic and others.

Leading the Future argumentsincluding in paid advertising, that “doomers” (a derisive term for those worried about AI safety) like the leaders of Anthropic and friends of the fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried are backing Public First and its top candidate, Alex Bores, with dark money.

“Know the truth about who is really backing Bores,” warns one ad. Mr. Bores, a Democrat running for the House in a crowded Manhattan primary race, is in the middle of the crossfire more than any other candidate. A group tied to Leading the Future has spent $4 million against him, and one tied to Public First has spent $3.7 million for him.

Whispers and Pleading

All of this has created quite a minefield for midterm candidates.

Fearful of being targeted by either super PAC, some Democratic candidates and midterm strategists are trying to say nothing at all about AI, according to people with knowledge of their conversations. These Democrats are dodging or slow-walking conversations with officials at the super PACs, working back-channel connections, or talking to both groups simultaneously.

The House Democratic campaign arm has encouraged some of the party’s candidates in battleground districts not to fill out Public First’s policy questionnaire, which the super PAC often relies on for its endorsement decisions, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. A spokeswoman for the arm said it urged caution on the overwhelming number of questionnaires that campaigns receive, but did not offer advice on specific ones.

The main House Democratic super PAC, House Majority PAC, has tried to keep the peace. Its president, Mike Smith, has sought to de-escalate the tensions in separate conversations with Mr. Carson and Mr. Vlasto, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Worried about endangering Democrats’ push to reclaim House control, Mr. Smith has encouraged the groups’ leaders not to pick vicious fights, as they have in Mr. Bores’s race, in any districts that could be competitive in November.

The drama has spilled over onto Capitol Hill, too.

Leading the Future — whose nonprofit group was advised by Max Rose, a former Democratic congressman from New York — endorsed eight incumbent House Democrats in noncompetitive races this spring, as part of an attempt to cultivate more Democratic allies.

Some of the House Democrats did not know that the endorsements were coming, and were surprised to receive them, according to people close to them.

Just as unsolicited is what happened next.

In the ensuing weeks, some of the House Democrats heard from people tied to Public First, imploring them to denounce Leading the Future and reject its endorsement, according to people with knowledge of the calls.

Those messages bothered at least some of the Democratic recipients, who saw them as transactional — implying that if they rejected Leading the Future’s support, Public First would be willing to spend money on their behalf.

Mr. Carson said that no Public First employees had suggested this. And he argued that the Democrats endorsed by Leading the Future did not have any particular alignment to its agenda.

“We welcome turkeys who want to pay for Thanksgiving,” he said.

Pulling a Punch

Public First’s burning desire to oppose Leading the Future has led to some knee-jerk decisions.

For instance, after Leading the Future backed Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democratic former congressman seeking to return to the House in Illinois, Public First saw an opportunity to challenge its rival. In March, a super PAC tied to Public First filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to spend $1 million on radio and digital ads against Mr. Jackson.

But after the funeral of Mr. Jackson’s father, who had died in February, Public First apparently thought better of it, and amended the paperwork so as to not spend a dollar.

Mr. Carson said that despite his desire to stick it to Leading the Future, he felt “queasy” about attacking Mr. Jackson given his father’s recent death. (Mr. Carson once volunteered for the elder Mr. Jackson.)

Mr. Carson stressed he had “nothing but respect” for Leading the Future’s strategists, including Mr. Vlasto. Mr. Vlasto declined to comment on Mr. Carson, saying he had never met him.

A ‘Green Light’ for AI Spending

In North Carolina, Ms. Foushee’s aides initially communicated with nonprofit groups allied with both super PACs, according to people with knowledge of the talks.

Ms. Foushee, who had just been named in December by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, to a Democratic task force on AI issues, was on the cusp of securing endorsements from both AI super PACs.

But then her aides stopped engaging with Leading the Future’s nonprofit group, Build American AI, declining to finish a policy questionnaire that is a prerequisite for its endorsement, one of the people said. After talking with Mr. Smith, Leading the Future shelved the ad it had cut for her.

Ms. Foushee said her “official and campaign offices do not speak to Leading the Future PAC or Build American AI”

some progressive groups have urged Democratic candidates to not fill out the Leading the Future questionnaire at all.

The left views AI super PACs suspiciously. Nida Allam, the progressive candidate who narrowly lost to Ms. Foushee, said she saw little difference between the two big-money groups.

“When you get placed on these committees, it turns on a green light and a signal for these corporations that this is who we need to dump money into because they have a say on your policy,” Ms. Allam said. “One or the other, it’s both the same.”