AI Companies Just Spent $1 Million Backing One Senator
Big Tech is quietly paying to write the rules that will govern AI.
AI companies and the investors behind them have spent close to $1 million to help Republican Mike Rounds keep his Senate seat in South Dakota. About $600,000 came from a super PAC (a political fundraising group that can take unlimited donations) called Defend American Jobs, which is funded in part by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Another $215,000 came directly from employees and political groups tied to AI labs — most notably Anthropic — plus Google and Microsoft. Rounds has raised more money from tech groups than from people who actually live in South Dakota.
Here's the strange part: Rounds is almost certain to win anyway. Recent polls show him far ahead after the Democratic candidate dropped out last month. So why spend so much? Because Rounds is seen inside the AI industry as one of its few real friends in Washington, and Congress is expected to take up AI regulation soon. On Thursday, a super PAC called Leading the Future — funded partly by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and investors Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen — announced $2 million for a group of AI-friendly Senate Republicans, Rounds included. The industry is stocking up on allies while it still can.
Back home, the fight is less abstract than it sounds. It's about data centers — the giant warehouse-like buildings full of computers that power AI. They guzzle enormous amounts of water and electricity, and local residents often foot the bill. South Dakota's legislature passed a law this year forcing these companies to cover more of those costs, and voted against tax breaks for data center equipment. That stalled a planned Applied Digital project. Rounds ended up supporting restrictions on data centers — even though his former chief of staff is a registered lobbyist for Meta, which runs data centers elsewhere.
Why should this land on your radar? Because this is what AI regulation really looks like in practice. Not abstract debates about safety, but money flowing to politicians, and decisions about who pays when the computers come to town. A recent Gallup poll found seven in ten Americans oppose new data centers in their area. If your power bill or water supply is already straining, that fight may be coming to your state next.
- AI companies and their investors spent nearly $1 million to help Republican Senator Mike Rounds win a South Dakota race he was already expected to win easily.
- Most of the money came from a super PAC funded by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, plus employees and PACs tied to Anthropic, Google and Microsoft.
- The industry wants friendly lawmakers in place before Congress writes new AI rules — and the biggest local issue is who pays for the water and electricity that data centers use.
Why It Matters
Money like this shapes AI rules that touch your power bills, water, privacy and job — often without you noticing.