The AI industry is pouring hundreds of millions into US elections

The tech lobby spent $27 million on a single Congressional election in New York. OpenAI-backed Leading the Future spent $8 million on ads attacking Alex Bores, who vowed to rein in AI, in an effort to fire a warning shot—did it work? What does this mean for democracy? Meanwhile, a Michigan town takes on a nuclear AI data center, and a bipartisan effort to legislate against AI theft of artist’s work hits the Senate.
Plus, I speak with technologist and journalist Molly White about her new project: Tech Influence Watch (influence.citationneeded.news), which keeps tabs on the enormous sums the AI and crypto industries are spending to influence elections.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
Tech Influence Watch, Citation Needed (influence.citationneeded.news)
“We Will Fight to Our Very Last Breath” 404 Media (404media.co/we-will-fight-to-our-very-last-bre…)
Google is investing $75 million in A24 as part of an AI filmmaking partnership Quartz (qz.com/google-a24-investment-deepmind-ai-filmm…)
Children’s book illustrators (instagram.com/reels/DZt9SlQMwOu)start “We Are Better Than This” campaign to “stop the theft by big tech”
Bipartisan members introduce new bill to protect creators from AI style theft Axios (axios.com/2026/06/02/creator-style-ai-protecti…)
Big Tech won the race. But the AI fight is just beginning Politico (politico.com/news/2026/06/23/micah-lasher-wins…)
Producer: Ryan Hodes.
Executive producer: Kate Osborne
Art by Koren Shadmi.
Music by Brian Merchant and Ryan Hall, engineered by Josh Q.

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