Anthropic and OpenAI take their beef to the midterm elections

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Column ColumnPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Column Policy PolicyPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All Policy Politics PoliticsPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

FollowSee All PoliticsAnthropic and OpenAI take their beef to the midterm electionsThe rival AI companies are backing super PACs spending millions to attack congressional candidates — and each other. The rival AI companies are backing super PACs spending millions to attack congressional candidates — and each other. by Tina Nguyen Tina NguyenSenior Reporter, WashingtonPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

FollowSee All by Tina NguyenMay 20, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Stephen Morton, Getty Images Tina Nguyen Tina NguyenPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. FollowSee All by Tina Nguyen is a Senior Reporter for The Verge and author of Regulator, covering the second Trump administration, political influencers, tech lobbying and Big Tech vs. Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the car crashes piling up on a daily basis at the Washington-based intersection of technology and politics.

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Industry Implications

On Tuesday, New York Democrat congressional candidate Alex Bores, whose campaign leans heavily on promoting AI regulation, challenged Leading the Future — the $100 million pro-AI super PAC funded by Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale, Andreessen Horowitz, and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman — to an in-person, real-world debate. In a press release, the Bores campaign laid out their conditions: Leading the Future could pick the moderator, it could pick its own representative, but it has to commit to a debate before the June 23rd primary. The likelihood of this debate taking place is slim to none.

(Leading the Future declined to comment about the debate challenge.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.