According to Fortune, Leading the Future—a $100 million pro-AI super PAC formed in August and backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman—has identified its first political target: Alex Bores, a Democratic congressional candidate running for the New York seat being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler after three decades. Bores is the chief sponsor of New York’s RAISE Act, which would require large AI labs to create safety plans, disclose serious incidents like model theft, and avoid releasing systems posing “unreasonable” risks with potential civil penalties up to $30 million. The legislation, similar to California’s vetoed SB-1047 bill, awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature and has support from AI safety advocates including researchers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. Leading the Future co-head Josh Vlasto argues the legislation would create “a national patchwork that is not workable,” while Bores dismisses the opposition as “an extremely loud minority” spending hundreds of millions against bipartisan-supported regulation.
AI politics heats up
Here’s the thing: this isn’t just about one congressional race in New York. We’re seeing the opening moves in what’s going to be a massive political fight over who gets to shape AI regulation. And Silicon Valley money is clearly willing to play hardball. Leading the Future has $100 million to throw around, and they’re starting with what they see as vulnerable targets—politicians who dare to propose actual rules for this rapidly expanding industry.
What’s fascinating is how both sides are framing this. The super PAC claims they’re not anti-regulation, just against “unworkable” rules. Meanwhile, Bores points out that his bill passed with every single Republican state senator voting for it. So this isn’t your typical left-right divide. It’s more about the tension between rapid innovation and safety concerns. Basically, do we trust AI companies to regulate themselves, or do we need government stepping in?
Broader industry shakeup
While the political battles heat up, the AI industry itself is undergoing massive consolidation and investment. Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic just announced strategic partnerships that include Anthropic committing to purchase $30 billion of Azure compute. NVIDIA will invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic while Microsoft puts in up to $5 billion. That’s serious money even by Silicon Valley standards.
And the players keep coming. Jeff Bezos is officially returning to a hands-on role as Co-CEO of a new AI startup called Project Prometheus with $6.2 billion in funding. Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son are backing Episteme, a research lab aiming to revive the Bell Labs model. Meanwhile, Japanese AI darling Sakana AI just raised $135 million at a $2.65 billion valuation. The gold rush is absolutely happening, and everyone wants a piece.
What’s really at stake
Look, the fundamental question here is whether we’re heading toward meaningful AI safety regulations or if the industry will successfully lobby its way to minimal oversight. The fact that a super PAC with this much firepower is already targeting specific candidates tells you everything. They’re not waiting for national legislation—they’re going state by state, race by race.
And the timing couldn’t be more critical. We’re seeing AI systems that can apparently win gold medals in physics competitions, according to new research. The technology is advancing at breakneck speed, while regulation moves at, well, government speed. The gap between what’s technically possible and what’s properly governed is widening by the day.
So what happens next? This New York race is just the beginning. With industry watchers noting Google’s massive Gemini 3 rollout and Cloudflare outages disrupting major AI sites, the infrastructure and political battles are converging. The companies building this technology want minimal interference, while safety advocates want guardrails. And now both sides are bringing their checkbooks to the political arena. Buckle up—this is going to get messy.
