Build American AI targets three swing states with data center ads — SkimNews
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- Build American AI, a newly formed group affiliated with the super PAC Leading the Future, told Bloomberg it will run data center ads in Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin, with a budget of millions of dollars.
- Leading the Future (LTF) launched with over $50 million in funding from Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and has mostly used that money to donate to specific politicians, per Politico.
- LTF both supports candidates who advocate for AI and works to oppose candidates who lobby against the technology, according to sources cited by Politico.
- OpenAI publicly distanced itself from LTF in a June blog post, stating it 'does not direct the activities of LTF' and condemning astroturfing tactics by groups advocating on AI.
- Anthropic, by contrast, is a known supporter of Public First Action, a super PAC that backs AI regulation — a split between the two AI giants on political posture.
- Andreessen Horowitz has spent over $115 million in disclosed federal contributions, making it the biggest midterm donor so far per the New York Times, ahead of Elon Musk and George Soros.
Why it matters: AI-industry political money is now flowing into three state-level races where data center siting — not abstract AI policy — is the ballot-box issue, and the biggest-spending PAC's own parent company's leadership has formally renounced its tactics, a tension that could undermine the ads' credibility with skeptical voters.
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