Americans vote in the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3. Control of Congress is at stake, and so are the rules that will govern AI in the US.
Tech billionaires and AI companies have put more money into this election than ever before. The biggest single donor is Elon Musk, who has given $446 million, mostly to groups working to keep Republicans in control of Congress. According to Federal Election Commission filings, no individual has given more to a US election in modern history.
The AI industry is spending too, but it is split in two. One group, backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, wants light AI rules. Anthropic funds a rival group that wants stricter safety rules. Each backs candidates from both parties.
There is a catch. Many voters are now wary of AI and the data centres it needs, and some candidates are using AI-industry support as an attack line against their opponents. As a result, the AI groups have cut back their spending in the final weeks of the campaign.
Here is who is spending, who they are backing, and what the result could mean for AI companies and startups.
Elon Musk: $446 million, mostly for Republicans
Musk's total is about three times that of the next-biggest donors, Uline founders Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who have given $150 million. It is also about ten times what Leading the Future, the AI industry's main political group, has spent this cycle.
His largest effort is in Texas. At least $168 million of Musk's money has gone through groups active in the state, including groups attacking Democrat James Talarico, who faces Republican Ken Paxton in the Senate race. One pro-Paxton group that Musk gave $10 million to paid for AI-generated robocalls attacking Talarico. A CNN poll shows Talarico narrowly ahead.
Musk's own political group, America PAC, is active in more than 40 House and Senate races. In Michigan's 7th district, one of the closest House races, Democrat Will Lawrence is campaigning against data centres. His campaign says America PAC has spent against him.
Why it matters for AI
It is a bet on who controls Congress. The party in charge will decide how AI is regulated, including whether one federal law overrides state AI laws.
Democrats have no tech donor on the same scale. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and his wife, Michelle Yee, are the biggest tech donors on the Democratic side, with about $41 million. That is less than a tenth of Musk's total.
Musk is also an AI company owner. He owns xAI, which competes with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google and relies on large data centres.
Source: FEC filings and company announcements, as of late October 2026
These figures are not exactly comparable: Meta's is a budget, and Anthropic's money went to a policy nonprofit rather than to candidates. But the size of the gap is clear.
OpenAI's backers vs Anthropic: two AI groups with opposite goals
Leading the Future launched in August 2025 with pledges of more than $100 million. It backs candidates who favour light AI regulation and one federal AI law instead of separate state laws. Its largest donors are Andreessen Horowitz, which gave $50 million, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, who gave $25 million.
Public First backs candidates who support AI safety and transparency rules. Anthropic has given $40 million to its nonprofit arm, Public First Action, and says that money cannot be used to support candidates. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei personally gave $1 million to the group's election arm. Public First is run by two former members of Congress, one Democrat and one Republican.
Both groups support Democrats and Republicans. The split is not between parties. It is over how strictly AI should be regulated.
New York: $21 million spent on one primary
The two groups clashed in the Democratic primary for New York's 12th district, in Manhattan. The candidate at the centre was Alex Bores, a state lawmaker who wrote an AI regulation bill. Leading the Future spent about $8 million against him, and Public First spent $12 million supporting him. In total, the two groups spent $21.3 million on the race.
Bores lost the June primary to Micah Lasher. But Lasher then turned down AI-industry support and called for a national pause on data-centre construction, so the AI industry did not gain an ally. Bores later said the spending "really served to elevate the issue of AI".
Why AI money is now hurting candidates
Public opinion on AI has turned more negative over the past year. Proposals to pause or block new data centres have appeared in nearly 500 US communities, driven by worries about electricity bills and jobs.
In a Data for Progress poll of likely voters in Iowa, Michigan and Ohio, about three in four said support from AI-industry groups would make them less likely to vote for a candidate. The poll was commissioned by Guardrails Alliance, a group that campaigns against AI-industry money in politics.
Candidates are using this against each other. In San Francisco, where Nancy Pelosi is retiring, ads attack the leading candidate, state senator Scott Wiener, as "bankrolled by Big Tech and AI". Public First Action gave $3.5 million to a group supporting him. Wiener wrote California's main AI safety law.
The AI groups have scaled back as a result:
Leading the Future spent $4.1 million in October, mostly on candidates in safe seats, and still had nearly $24 million unspent. It has spent under $10 million on the general election, compared with about $26 million in the primaries.
Some donors have pulled out. Brockman cancelled a second planned $25 million donation in June, calling the effort "a distraction". Early backer Ron Conway reportedly regrets his $500,000 donation.
Some spending is harder to trace. More than $30 million of Leading the Future's spending has gone through newly created Delaware companies, which hides who it is paying.
Public First has slowed down too, spending about $1.1 million in October.
Overall, only about 5% of the AI groups' direct spending has gone to competitive general-election races. In practice, the AI industry is staying out of the races that will decide control of Congress.
Meta and Google are focusing on state elections
Meta and Google are putting their political money into state races, because states are where most AI laws are being passed. States passed a record 115 AI laws in 2026. Congress has not passed a general AI law.
Meta has budgeted $65 million for state races, its largest political effort ever. One Meta-funded group backs Republicans, starting in Texas, where Meta has three AI data-centre projects. Another backs Democrats, starting in Illinois. Both support candidates who are friendly to AI and data centres.
In California, tech companies account for at least a fifth of outside spending in state legislative races. Google and Meta jointly funded a group for those races, which has mostly supported business-friendly Democrats over union-backed Democrats.
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia are not among the biggest corporate political donors this cycle. They mainly influence policy through lobbying.
What it means for AI companies and startups
Whatever the result, a single national AI law is unlikely to arrive soon.
The main question is preemption: whether one federal AI law should override state AI laws. Many AI companies want this. But in 2025 the Senate voted 99–1 to remove a 10-year ban on state AI laws from a budget bill. President Trump has since tried to limit state AI laws through an executive order, but no state AI law has been overridden so far.
Policy experts at a Washington panel on October 14 described the likely effects of each outcome:
If Democrats win the House, which Blair Levin of New York University's Center on Technology Policy expects, they are likely to block any broad override of state laws, and Trump is unlikely to sign a bill that leaves those laws in place. The likely result is deadlock, and state laws stay.
If Democrats win the House narrowly, Republicans can treat it as a normal midterm loss and keep their light-touch approach to AI.
If Democrats also win the Senate, Republicans may support tougher bills, such as making AI companies liable for harm caused by their products, or requiring audits of the largest AI developers.
If Republicans keep both chambers, the push for one national AI law continues. Even then, the panel expected any deal to be narrow, for example covering only safety testing.
For founders, three things follow. Prepare to follow different AI rules in different states, starting with California, Colorado, Illinois and New York. Expect electricity and data centres to remain political issues, which affects the cost of computing. And watch how candidates who campaigned against data centres perform. If they win, Levin argues, other politicians will see opposition to AI as a vote-winner, possibly ahead of the 2028 presidential race.
What to watch on election night
Texas Senate: Talarico vs Paxton. This is where Musk has spent the most. A Talarico win, despite more than $168 million of Musk-linked money in the state, would show that very large donations cannot guarantee a result.
Ohio Senate: Sherrod Brown vs Jon Husted. Experts see this race as a test of whether campaigning against data centres and AI wins votes.
Texas governor: Greg Abbott vs Gina Hinojosa. Abbott, who earlier welcomed data-centre investment, froze new data-centre connections to the state grid in August after demand reached more than five times the grid's record peak.
Michigan's 7th district. One of the closest House races. The Democrat is campaigning against data centres, and his campaign says Musk's group is spending against him.
San Francisco's open House seat. A test of whether the "bankrolled by AI" label hurts Scott Wiener, who wrote California's main AI safety law.
What Leading the Future does next. It still has about $24 million unspent and describes itself as a "multi-cycle effort". How it spends that money after Tuesday will show whether the AI industry plans to keep spending on elections.
Tech companies and billionaires have spent more on this election than ever before. But the money has not made AI more popular. AI is now an election issue in its own right, many voters are wary of it, and that is the bigger change for anyone building in AI.
Sources
All figures are as reported by the sources below up to October 31, 2026. FEC totals change as late filings arrive.