The artificial intelligence industry is well on the way to spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the midterm elections in an extraordinary demonstration of political power from Silicon Valley.
A.I. companies, groups tied to the industry and top executives of both donated at least $83 million in 2025 to federal campaigns and committees, according to a New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. That figure, combined with a $65 million push by the tech giant Meta at the state level, reveals about $150 million and counting that is flowing from A.I. interests into the midterms.
The spending is broadly expected to benefit Republicans more than Democrats — and so far, it has. Republicans are seen as friendlier to the industry and more opposed to stringent A.I. regulations. But the analysis shows that some Democratic politicians who represent the Bay Area or have longtime ties to the tech industry were significant recipients of A.I. cash.
The two biggest donors, by far, backed Republicans. Greg Brockman, a co-founder of OpenAI, and his wife, Anna, made four donations on Sept. 12, 2025, of $12.5 million apiece — two from him, two from her — to the leading super PACs backing the A.I. industry and President Trump.
OpenAI has stressed that the Brockmans made these donations in a personal capacity. Industry critics are skeptical. But the contributions nevertheless redound to the benefit of OpenAI and are aligned with its political strategy of primarily supporting Republicans and the Trump administration.
“This year, my wife Anna and I started getting involved politically, including through political contributions, reflecting support for policies that advance American innovation and constructive dialogue between government and the technology sector,” Mr. Brockman wrote in a lengthy post on X on New Year’s Eve, connecting the donations in a narrative to a dinner he attended at the White House.
It remains unclear precisely how much money the A.I. industry and its allies are spending on elections this year, because comprehensive federal filings are available only through the end of 2025. The figure of approximately $150 million does not include all the money that the A.I. industry is spending on state efforts, which do not file F.E.C. reports.
More A.I. money is clearly arriving. For instance, the top pro-A.I. super PAC, Leading the Future, has said that in the first quarter of the year, it would receive $50 million more from the Brockmans and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, its other big backer.
Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for Leading the Future, said that the super PAC and the A.I. industry were engaged in the midterms because they wanted “to move beyond partisan gridlock to enact strong, smart, and responsible national standards.”
And A.I.-connected cash is also quietly coursing into elections through nonprofit groups, which are not required to disclose their donors. Anthropic, a top rival to OpenAI that generally supports more A.I. regulation, has self-reported a $20 million contribution to a nonprofit group that is, in turn, funding some super PACs backing A.I. rules.
Brad Carson, who runs that nonprofit group, Public First Action, said that A.I. donations to state efforts were “largely to stymie the growing backlash on data centers.” The A.I. industry’s spending on federal elections, he said, was meant to influence whether the federal government should have greater power over A.I. regulation, versus letting states do their own regulating.
“Everyone knows this is what’s being pushed, so political donations are spiking,” Mr. Carson said.
Some donors with ties to the A.I. industry may have an interest in politics that goes beyond artificial intelligence.
For instance, a top donor in the Times analysis is Evan Goldberg, a senior A.I. executive at Oracle, the tech company whose software is intertwined with A.I. giants like OpenAI and Nvidia. He gave at least $317,000 to Democratic committees and candidates last year. Mr. Goldberg is a longtime Democratic donor who has given millions of dollars to left-of-center groups over the last several election cycles. Mr. Goldberg declined to comment.
The lines between personal and company spending can be thin, though. Take Brad Smith, a top Microsoft official. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most politically active executives, leading Microsoft’s lobbying in Washington. But he is also among the sector’s most effective “bundlers” and contributors in a personal capacity, donating at least $173,000 to back Democrats and at least $180,000 to support Republicans.
A representative for Microsoft declined to comment.
Democrats who represent the Bay Area in Congress, like Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Sam Liccardo, are among some of the top recipients of A.I. interests’ spending: Ms. Lofgren drew at least $91,000 and Mr. Liccardo at least $61,000 last year.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat who is a former tech executive and is close with A.I. leaders, received at least $67,000 last year. Another $82,000 flowed into joint fund-raising committees associated with Mr. Warner, including from Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, who wrote a $7,000 check for the senator last year.
Other lawmakers who benefited from tens of thousands of A.I. dollars included senior leaders on Capitol Hill, such as Representative Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, a Republican who serves as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic House minority whip. Representative Jason Smith of Missouri, a Republican who has expressed support for building data centers in his state, was also a top recipient.
However, the political candidates who are benefiting the most from the A.I. interests’ spending are not those who have had the checks directly deposited into their accounts, but those who are seeing hundreds of thousands spent on their behalf by the industry’s main super PAC, Leading the Future.
For example, Chris Gober, a Republican House candidate in Texas, had $244,000 spent on his behalf last year by the super PAC’s Republican affiliate, which spent another $504,000 for him in January.
Some political candidates are benefiting from the A.I. industry’s targeting of their opponents.
In New York, these candidates include the rivals of Alex Bores, a Democrat running in a crowded House primary contest. He has made a name for himself as a vocal critic of the A.I. industry — and has embraced his role as a villain of Leading the Future. The super PAC, through its affiliate, spent $118,000 last year to oppose Mr. Bores and has already spent $1.3 million against him this year.
But at the same time, a super PAC linked to an Anthropic-funded nonprofit group is supporting Mr. Bores, announcing a $450,000 ad campaign this week to back his candidacy.
A.I. spending is likely to play a significant role in several other midterm primaries in the coming months. Leading the Future announced this month that it would use its fortune to help three congressional candidates, two Democrats and one Republican, in contested primaries in Illinois and North Carolina.
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About the data
In its analysis of donations tied to the A.I. industry, The Times included the major A.I. model developers OpenAI and Anthropic as well as donors to the pro-A.I. super PAC Leading the Future. It also included 21 technology companies and trade associations that spent $5 million or more over the past two years lobbying for A.I. issues, according to data from the U.S. Senate. Those companies included Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The analysis tallied Federal Election Commission contributions in 2025 from the organizations themselves, their affiliated political action committees and senior-level employees. Senior-level employees included company presidents, vice presidents and other executive-level positions, identified by employer and occupation fields in the campaign finance data.
The Times included filings made with the F.E.C. that were submitted as of Feb. 1, a day after the 2025 year-end filing deadline.
Theodore Schleifer is a Times reporter covering billionaires and their impact on the world.
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