Silicon Valley’s AI Super PACs Wage Political War Over Regulation—and One Candidate Is at the Center of It All

If you’ve been watching political ads in New York lately, you might have seen a striking attack against Alex Bores, a Democratic assembly member running for Congress in New York’s 12th district. The ad accuses him of making hundreds of thousands of dollars building technology for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and “powering their deportations.” But the real story behind the ads is far more complicated—and reveals a brewing battle over AI regulation that’s spilling into American politics.

The Palantir Connection—and the Resignation That Changed Everything

The ads target Bores for his former employment at Palantir, the controversial AI company whose technology powers ICE’s deportation operations. But here’s what the ads don’t tell you: Bores quit Palantir in 2019 specifically because of its work with ICE.

“I quit Palantir specifically over its work with ICE in 2019,” Bores told TechCrunch on a recent episode of their Equity podcast. This detail transforms the narrative from one of complicity to one of principled opposition.

Now, as Bores runs for Congress, he finds himself targeted by super PACs funded by the very Silicon Valley elite he’s challenging. The irony is thick: the same industry figures whose companies he criticized are now spending millions to defeat him.

The $125 Million War Chest Behind the Ads

The attack ads against Bores are funded by a super PAC called Leading the Future, which has raised an astonishing $125 million to influence state elections. The PAC’s backers read like a who’s who of AI industry power players: Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, AI search startup Perplexity, and other Silicon Valley heavyweights.

Their strategy is clear and aggressive: target candidates who introduce AI legislation and support those who favor minimal regulation. For Bores, this means facing at least $10 million in opposition spending—an astronomical sum for what would normally be a local assembly race.

“They have committed to spending at least $10 million against me…because they know I am their biggest threat in their quest for unbridled control over the American worker, over our kids’ minds, climate, and our utility bills,” Bores said. “They’re targeting me to make an example of me.”

Why Bores Terrifies Silicon Valley

Bores isn’t just another politician dabbling in tech policy—he’s exactly the kind of opponent Silicon Valley fears most. With a computer science degree and actual tech industry experience (including at Palantir and several startups), he can’t be dismissed as someone who “just doesn’t understand” the technology.

“If elected, he would be only the second Democrat in Congress with a computer science degree,” the article notes—a credential that gives him credibility when debating AI policy with industry executives.

His background makes him dangerous to companies that prefer to regulate themselves. When Bores speaks about AI, he does so with technical fluency that commands respect even from those who disagree with him.

The RAISE Act: Light-Touch Regulation That Still Angered Big Tech

Bores’s legislative record shows he’s no radical seeking to destroy the AI industry. He sponsored the RAISE Act, an AI transparency bill signed into law in New York in December. The law requires large AI labs—those making more than $500 million in revenue—to maintain publicly available safety plans, adhere to them, and report catastrophic safety incidents.

This is the kind of regulation that other industries might consider a gift: disclosure and planning requirements rather than proactive oversight or restrictions on development. Yet even this light-touch approach was enough to make Bores a target.

The law represents a middle ground that Bores believes most Americans support: acknowledging AI’s potential while demanding basic accountability and safety measures.

The Federal vs. State Regulation Battle

Leading the Future’s position reveals the industry’s broader strategy. While they claim to support federal regulation, their actions suggest they oppose any regulation at all—especially at the state level where individual legislators like Bores can push through laws without national consensus.

Over the past year, states have been fighting to protect their rights to regulate AI in the absence of federal standards. In December, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge “onerous” state AI laws like Bores’s RAISE Act.

This creates a bizarre situation where the industry claims to want federal regulation (which doesn’t exist) while actively working to prevent states from filling the regulatory vacuum. It’s a classic delay tactic: keep pushing the problem to higher levels of government where consensus is harder to achieve.

Bores’s Comprehensive AI Governance Plan

Bores isn’t just reacting to industry pressure—he’s proactively shaping the debate. His campaign has proposed a national AI governance blueprint spanning eight issue areas and 43 policy recommendations. The framework addresses everything from transparency requirements to training data disclosure to metadata standards that would make synthetic content easier to trace.

Anyone serious about federal AI regulation, Bores argues, should be supporting his candidacy rather than funding efforts to defeat him. His approach represents thoughtful, technically-informed policymaking rather than industry-driven or reactionary positions.

The Money Race: Meta’s $65 Million and Beyond

Leading the Future isn’t alone in pouring unprecedented sums into state-level AI politics. Meta has invested $65 million into two super PACs—American Technology Excellence Project and Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across (Meta) California—to elect state-level candidates friendly to the AI and tech industry.

AI companies, industry groups, and top executives donated at least $83 million in 2025 to federal campaigns and committees. This flood of tech money into politics represents a fundamental shift in how the industry wields influence.

“The average assembly race in New York raises maybe $100,000 total, maybe less,” Bores noted. “For one company (Meta) to be spending $65 million on state races, let alone everything they’re doing in Congress—I think it’s tough for people to understand how much that is above the norm.”

The Intimidation Strategy

Bores sees through the industry’s messaging. “This is not a ‘We want to have a piece of the conversation,'” he said. “This is: ‘We want to intimidate elected officials and browbeat anyone who doesn’t agree with us.'”

The strategy is clear: make an example of Bores to discourage other legislators from pursuing even modest AI regulations. If a technically-savvy former industry insider with actual computer science credentials can be targeted this aggressively, what chance do other politicians have?

The Counter-Force: Anthropic’s Public First Action

Not all of Silicon Valley is united against Bores. He’s garnered support from a separate Anthropic-backed PAC called Public First Action, which is spending $450,000 on his New York campaign. Public First Action describes itself as pro-AI but with a focus on transparency, safety, and public oversight—representing a different vision of responsible AI development.

This split within the industry reveals that the debate isn’t simply pro-regulation versus anti-regulation, but rather different visions of how AI should be governed and who should benefit from its development.

The Broader Context: Tech Workers Organizing

Bores’s base of supporters includes tech workers at the very firms whose leaders want to defeat him. This represents part of a broader pattern of grassroots organizing inside tech companies over how AI is deployed and who it serves.

From Google to OpenAI to Anthropic, tech workers are increasingly questioning their companies’ approaches to government contracts, ethical boundaries, and the societal impacts of their technologies. Bores’s support from rank-and-file tech workers suggests that industry leadership may not represent the views of all employees.

The Three Camps in the AI Debate

Bores identifies three broad camps in the AI debate:

1. The Unbridled Development Camp: A small minority who see any regulation as a threat to AI progress and want “to let it rip”

2. The Anti-AI Camp: Another minority who “want to pretend AI never existed and put the genie back in the bottle and burn all the data centers”

3. The Middle Ground: Most Americans who use AI, see its potential, but are concerned about how fast it’s moving and whether government can ensure a future that benefits the many instead of the few

Bores positions himself squarely in the middle, advocating for thoughtful regulation that doesn’t stifle innovation but also doesn’t leave public safety to market forces alone.

The Stakes: Democracy vs. Corporate Control

At its core, this battle is about who gets to shape AI’s future. Is it democratically-elected officials responding to constituents’ concerns? Or is it tech billionaires and corporations pursuing their own interests?

Bores’s campaign represents an attempt to ensure that AI development serves public interests rather than purely corporate ones. The unprecedented spending against him suggests that some in Silicon Valley see even modest democratic oversight as existentially threatening to their business models.

The outcome of this fight will help determine whether AI becomes a tool for broad societal benefit or concentrated corporate power. As Bores puts it, most Americans “wonder if the government is up to the task of ensuring we have a future that benefits the many instead of the few.”

This isn’t just about one congressional race in New York. It’s about whether American democracy can effectively govern transformative technologies or whether corporate interests will preempt that governance through financial dominance of the political process.

Tags:

AI regulation, Silicon Valley politics, Palantir ICE controversy, Alex Bores congressional race, RAISE Act AI transparency, Big Tech super PACs, state vs federal AI regulation, tech industry lobbying, AI safety legislation, democratic oversight of AI

Viral Phrases:

“they’re targeting me to make an example of me”
“this is not a ‘we want to have a piece of the conversation'”
“we want to intimidate elected officials and browbeat anyone who doesn’t agree with us”
“let it rip” AI development
“put the genie back in the bottle and burn all the data centers”
“benefits the many instead of the few”
“only the second Democrat in Congress with a computer science degree”
“they know I am their biggest threat”
“unprecedented spending above the norm”
“democratically-elected officials responding to constituents’ concerns”

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