Anthropic CEO gave $1M to AI safety super PAC

Skip to content

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei gave $1 million to Public First, a super PAC backing candidates who support stronger guardrails on AI, according to a campaign finance filing Wednesday.

He was joined by several other Anthropic employees, who gave a combined $2.15 million over the last quarter, the filing showed. A Google DeepMind engineer and an OpenAI staff member rounded out the contributions to the super PAC from the last three months.

It comes as Public First and another major AI super PAC, Leading the Future, have faced off in early midterm races amid a wider battle over how the industry should be regulated.

This dynamic was on display in the race to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). Leading the Future came out against New York state assemblymember Alex Bores, who sponsored AI safety legislation that was opposed by the industry.

Leading the Future, which opposes candidates who support policies the industry believes could hamper AI innovation, spent more than $8 million on the race.

Various AI safety groups, including a super PAC affiliated with Public First, poured more $20 million into backing Bores. He ultimately lost to fellow New York state assemblymember Micah Lasher in the Democratic primary last month.

According to Wednesday’s filing, Public First brought in a total of $3.4 million last quarter and ended the period with about $490,000 on hand.

Leading the Future did not report any new contributions over the past three months but wrapped up the quarter with $31 million on hand.

The super PAC has previously received contributions from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife Anna Brockman, venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, AI firm Perplexity, venture capitalist Ron Conway and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Tags

Anthropic

artificial intellgience

Dario Amodei

Jerry Nadler

Leading the Future

Public First

Ron Conway

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.