Leading the Future, a pro-AI PAC backed by Palantir-cofounder Joe Lonsdale, hit pro-regulation Democrat Alex Bores with attack ads over Bores' work for Palantir
NEW YORK CITY — Alex Bores had known for a while that a political operation called Leading the Future, funded …
Context & Ripple Effects
Leading the Future had already emerged as a well-funded vehicle for shaping AI policy politics, with coverage reporting more than $125 million raised in 2025 to influence the midterms and federal AI regulation. This ad campaign shows that effort moving from broad policy advocacy into candidate-specific opposition.
The target complicates the usual industry-versus-regulator framing: Bores is a pro-regulation Democrat whose past Palantir work is now being used against him by a PAC backed by Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale. A later interview with Bores about the PAC's opposition suggests the dispute has become a continuing part of his political profile.
First-order effects
- Bores must contend with attack ads that recast his Palantir experience as a liability, even as he advocates AI regulation.
- Leading the Future establishes that it will deploy its pro-AI political resources against candidates whose regulatory stance conflicts with its agenda, including candidates with industry experience.
Second-order effects
- Other candidates may face greater pressure to define both their AI-policy positions and past technology-sector ties, giving outside groups more material for targeted messaging.
- The campaign strengthens incentives for organized pro-regulation forces to answer in kind; related coverage described a planned counter-network of super PACs backing candidates who prioritize AI rules.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, AI regulation could become a durable campaign-finance battleground, with policy disputes increasingly mediated by well-capitalized independent political groups rather than only legislative debate.
- The resulting politics may make a candidate's relationship to AI companies as electorally salient as their regulatory platform, complicating cross-industry coalitions around AI oversight.
The trend: AI's institutionalization is extending into electoral politics, where competing capital-backed groups are seeking to shape the regulators and rules governing the sector.