You would think if the general public actually wanted this, lobbying wouldn't be necessary. Call your reps. Let them know how you feel about intellectual property theft, wage theft, ecological impacts, and the intentional erosion of the voting power of the majority in modern democracy.
AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
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Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#52> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
Lobbying expenditures are given to lobbyists not politicians. You're primarily paying for the salary of some humanities or social science majors and their travel expenses, which isn't that much money.
This should be a basic fact. If those who spend a good portion of time being angry at lobbyists yet intelligent enough to make mid-six figures conflate bribery with lobbying, it should be no surprise the corporations have captured the government. The general public has essentially zero civic understanding while corporations are able to hire the few that do.
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#53That's not new though. Washington succumbed to bribes decades ago already. It just is much more apparent now with the orange king and his billionaire bodies. The Epstein network must be much bigger than what is already known. It is also most likely still existing today, just with different actors. Billionaires want to party - often with people below a certain age ...
My latest Epstein WTF moment: moot (yeah, the guy from 4chan). Epstein even drive him back home... /pol/ was created a few days later. Qanon went on to start there, before moving to 8chan, a competitor bought by Jim Watkins (and certainly Bannon behind him).
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#54You would think if the general public actually wanted this, lobbying wouldn't be necessary. Call your reps. Let them know how you feel about intellectual property theft, wage theft, ecological impacts, and the intentional erosion of the voting power of the majority in modern democracy.
Yes, call your reps. See if anything changes since the last time you called them.
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#55Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#56Everyone should be lobbying. It is the golden era of lobbying with 100% success rates. Whether you are in AI or the lettuce industry.
I know many people who are using AI, but only a few are actually eating their lettuces, so I guess there's some conflict there
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#57> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
It's pocket change now, but they are lobbying hard now knowing well they won't be able to afford it later.
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#58> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
Wow - so one really good researchers salary/stock grant. I feel like they're underinvesting...
That's what my microeconomics professor said shortly after Citizens United. "If political campaigns were that good of an investment, they'd be investing more!" ...and then they did. Outside spending absolutely took off after 2010 and shows no signs of slowing down. The conclusion he jumped to was false and it was false because he ignored the possibility that price discovery might take a while.
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#59> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures. Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
It's so cheap that normal people could band together and re-buy democracy. It's the banding together part that is hard.
The estimated spending on the 2026 election season is $11.6 billion [1]. One primary has had an estimated $60 million spent on it (ie the Michigan Democratic primary). Thomas Massie's primary had an estimated $35 million spent on it. A GOP Super PAC has earmarked $342 million for 8 Senate races [2].
Over $5 billion was spent on lobbying in 2025 [3].
To truly move policy you need to get pliable representatives first and that's not just money. There is a pipeline here. First, you get the right connections. That could be coming from a wealth family, be the nephew or grandson of some politician, do your time as a staffer or whatever. Going up through the ranks acts as a giant filter to make sure you will maintain the status quo. So you have to find candidates to run for these offices who have been weeded out by the existing processes. And if you don't have enough of them, the DNC or RNC will spend selectively against you in the primary and general election. And an increasing number of races have over $100 million spent on them.
Buying back democracy would be very, very expensive.
And then after all that there's the income and jobs pipeline. Your children get six-figure jobs with think tanks and interested companies. You leave office and get placed on boards of large companies. You can't compete with that.
[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/media-advertising/articles/2026-el...
[2]: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5818507-gop-super-pac-...
Re: AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also if they want my money then their interests align.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith
A curious choice of quote on a tech forum attached to a VC firm :P