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AI super PAC Leading the Future modeled on crypto tactics
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Relevant to AI governance watchers tracking industry political strategies; illustrates how AI companies are proactively shaping the regulatory landscape using electoral influence, which has implications for AI safety policy outcomes.
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Importance: 38/100news articlenews
Summary
This article covers the emergence of an AI-focused super PAC called 'Leading the Future,' which is adopting political strategies pioneered by the cryptocurrency industry to influence AI policy and elections. The piece examines how AI industry interests are mobilizing significant political spending to shape regulatory outcomes in Washington.
Key Points
- •An AI-focused super PAC named 'Leading the Future' is organizing to influence U.S. elections and AI policy using tactics borrowed from crypto's political playbook.
- •The crypto industry's success in using PAC spending to elect friendly legislators is serving as a template for AI industry political mobilization.
- •The super PAC represents a broader trend of AI stakeholders moving from reactive lobbying to proactive electoral influence.
- •This political spending is aimed at shaping the regulatory environment for AI before major governance frameworks are established.
- •The approach signals increasing institutionalization of AI industry political power as a counterweight to safety-oriented regulatory proposals.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| Leading the Future super PAC | Organization | 73.0 |
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Meet the super PAC trying to kill AI regulation
Subscribe Sign in AI embraces crypto’s dirty politics
A new super PAC network looks set to spend millions to influence AI regulation
Shakeel Hashim Aug 26, 2025 15 2 1 Share Image: Leading the Future The AI industry has already shown an appetite for dirty lobbying tactics, but things look set to get even worse.
On Monday, Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Perplexity, and investors Ron Conway and Joe Lonsdale launched Leading the Future, a new network of super PACs and 501c(4)s to “organize political support and elect pro-innovation candidates at scale.”
Leading the Future is launching with more than $100m in funding, enough to make it one of the biggest spenders in congressional elections. The aim is clear: throw obscene amounts of money at politicians to discourage AI regulation.
The network will “support candidates aligned with the pro-AI agenda … and oppose those that do not,” the announcement reads, with plans to operate in both primary contests and general elections. Statements accompanying the launch talk of needing to kill policies that “make it impossible to build” or “enable China to gain global AI superiority” — claims that will doubtless be weaponized against any and all AI regulation.
Leading the Future is, according to the Wall Street Journal , modeled on Fairshake — a super-PAC network that pushed a pro-crypto agenda in the 2024 elections. Josh Vlasto, one of the founders of Leading the Future, was Fairshake’s spokesman and media strategist.
Fairshake, which alongside affiliated super PACs spent about $135m last year, has a simple strategy. “If you are pro-crypto, we will help you, and if you are anti we will tear you apart,” a person familiar with its approach told the New Yorker.
In last year’s elections, Fairshake pumped millions of dollars into campaigns opposing politicians that the group deemed unfriendly. Many ads avoided mentioning crypto, in one instance simply calling a candidate a “liar” and a “bully” and falsely suggesting they had taken money from the pharma and oil industries. An employee at Coinbase, a major donor to Fairshake, told the New Yorker that “it wasn’t really about explaining how crypto works, or anything like that. It’s about hitting politicians where they are most sensitive—reelection.”
The figure behind much of Coinbase’s political work at the time was Chris Lehane, now head of global affairs at OpenAI. Lehane was “involved in initial conversations earlier in the year about the need to help shape [AI] industry-friendly policies,” the WSJ reported.
Lehane pr
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