The super PAC, called “Leading the Future,” is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and AI search engine company Perplexity.
It was launched in August, reportedly armed with more than $100 million to ensure a nationwide pro-AI victory in the 2026 midterm elections. According to the Wall Street Journal, the super PAC is buoyed by the success of Crypto Super PAC Fairshake, which counted significant pro-crypto victories in the 2024 presidential and local elections.
The PAC’s first target is New York State Assemblyman Alex Borres, who is running for a spot in Congress in the Democratic primary (though the super PAC’s efforts are bipartisan, much to the dismay of the White House). Bourse is a co-sponsor of the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, a landmark piece of state-level AI safety legislation that has passed all votes and is awaiting approval from Governor Kathy Hochul.
With a year left until the midterms, the super PAC has found another target: state regulations like RAISE that are giving the AI industry a hard time.
Leading the Future launched a $10 million campaign on Monday to push Washington to take a “uniform national approach to AI,” Nathan Leamer, executive director of the PAC’s advocacy arm, told CNBC. The advocacy arm led by Leamer is a nonprofit called Build American AI, and it is dedicated solely to this goal, with CNBC reporting that the group will run TV, digital, and social media ads to promote its legislative agenda.
The uniform national approach they are campaigning for would likely eliminate some of the stricter regulations proposed at the state level.
In the absence of any federal regulation governing AI, states like New York and California have taken matters into their own hands with regulations that require AI companies to adopt safeguards. Some in the industry see this as stifling innovation.
It is not just Silicon Valley, many people in Washington are also unhappy with this. That crowd includes several Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump.
Republicans have renewed calls to block state AI laws. A previous attempt to add a similar restriction to the Big Beautiful bill failed at the eleventh hour due to bipartisan backlash. There are many Republicans who support child protection laws regarding AI, and a complete halt could jeopardize those parts of the law as well.
The moratorium is expected to either be a standalone bill or be added to a must-pass bill such as the National Defense Authorization Act, which will be voted on next month.
Trump expressed his support just last week on his Truth Social account, saying that the United States should have “one federal standard instead of 50 state regulatory regimes.”
Trump is probably planning an executive order to take care of this. Last week, WIRED obtained a draft executive order that would create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that would sue states over AI laws that are deemed to violate federal law governing free speech, interstate commerce, and more. Although reports say Trump may sign this executive order by the end of the week, he has not yet done so. Instead, on Monday he signed a more expansive executive order related to AI.
Called “The Genesis Mission,” that executive order plans to use AI to turbocharge the government’s efforts to solve 20 major science “challenges” that have yet to be determined. There is also a theme of centralization running through it, as the order charges Energy Secretary Chris Wright with “ensuring that all DOE resources used for elements of the mission are integrated into a secure, unified platform.”
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