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
and building a strategy that other politicians will have to contend with. https://www.politico.com/...Katie Fossett /@katelynfossett:“Leading the Future's goal is not actually to kill Alex's race. Their goal ... is to signal to legislators in other races, in other states, that if you step out of line in this way, this is what we're going to do to you.” @nancyscola https://www.politico.com/...Rutger Bregman /@rcbregman:BOMBSHELL: Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen & Joe Lonsdale's $125M SuperPAC has a s
Context & Ripple Effects
Leading the Future was launched as a well-funded pro-AI political network and later reported more than $125 million in 2025 fundraising aimed at midterms and federal AI policy. The ads against Bores show that capacity being directed at an individual pro-regulation candidate.
The move arrives amid reports of a planned counter-network of super PACs for AI-regulation candidates, making AI policy an increasingly organized electoral contest rather than solely a legislative debate.
First-order effects
- Alex Bores faces attack advertising from Leading the Future, while the PAC demonstrates its willingness to deploy political spending against a Democrat identified with AI regulation.
- Leading the Future and its backers make their policy preferences more salient to candidates and lawmakers weighing AI-regulation positions.
Second-order effects
- Other candidates who favor AI rules may need to account for organized pro-AI spending in campaign planning and messaging, while allied donors may be pushed to support the emerging counter-PAC effort.
- The contest shifts attention from individual AI bills to the political costs of backing regulation, potentially shaping which proposals attract public legislative support.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, AI governance could develop a durable campaign-finance infrastructure on both sides, with PAC capacity becoming a recurring input into regulatory politics.
- That would make AI policy more state-mediated: firms and investors would compete not only through product development and lobbying, but through sustained electoral organization.
The trend: AI regulation is becoming an electoral arena in which well-funded industry-aligned PACs seek to shape the incentives facing policymakers.