Anthropic is pouring tens of millions of dollars into an escalating influence campaign as Congress wrestles with artificial intelligence rules.

Critics on Capitol Hill suspect the company’s calls for safety guardrails could double as a convenient strategy for sidelining smaller rivals.

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The company has directed $40 million through two donations to the super PAC Public First Action.

A $20 million contribution arrived in late July as Anthropic and competing AI interests prepared for a broader spending battle.

In one major contest, Public First Action contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting state Assemblyman Alex Bores, a Manhattan Democrat.

That spending was part of a $10 million push by groups affiliated with Anthropic, but Bores lost to fellow Democratic Assemblyman Micah Lasher.

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Lasher benefited from rival AI firms, including OpenAI linked Leading the Future, attacking his opponent.

The race offered an early glimpse of how competing technology companies are bringing their regulatory feud directly into political campaigns.

Anthropic, creator of the Claude chatbot, has also assembled a board featuring political players.

Netflix founder Reed Hastings sits on the board, and he and his wife, Patty Quillen, gave more than $20 million to Democrats in recent years.

Disclosure reports show Public First Action has kept most of its money in reserve.

The group has spent roughly $100,000 on an advertisement promoting Rep. Nikki Budzinski, an Illinois Democrat who backed government oversight in a 2026 candidate survey.

Budzinski wrote that “government oversight is essential to address the real harms AI can cause.”

Anthropic supports independent evaluations, transparency requirements and authority to stop deployments considered risky as increasingly powerful AI models emerge.

Some lawmakers and policy experts, however, see a less noble possibility behind the safety campaign.

They warn that regulations designed around the industry’s largest companies could burden smaller competitors and developers while leaving dominant businesses in a stronger position.

“You get a benefit from regulation because it hinders your competitors,” said James Andrew Lewis, a former US diplomat and Center for European Policy Analysis researcher who has helped negotiate cybersecurity agreements.

Lewis said of Anthropic cofounder Dario Amodei: “He might actually believe some of this stuff, but I’d say self-interest really explains it more.”

Lewis predicted a lobbying stalemate as wealthy companies divide between supporting and opposing regulation.

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Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, raised the possibility that the campaign could be “a backdoor attempt to prompt Congress to start pushing significant federal regulatory regime on AI,” although he said he was unsure whether that was the case.

“When all of a sudden there’s a massive new federal regulatory overlay, established market incumbents have an advantage against would-be competitors,” Lee said.

That concern goes to the heart of the congressional dispute over who would truly benefit from sweeping federal rules.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, offered an even sharper assessment. “I think they’re trying to capture the regulatory agency before there is one,” Johnson told The Post.

“I think the best way we can avoid the problems that AIs have is to have competition, a bunch of them as opposed to one or two government-sanctioned ones,” Johnson added.

Anthropic’s latest lobbying disclosure, filed in July, reported $2 million in spending over three months.

That was $400,000 more than its April report and $1 million more than the company spent during the final quarter of 2025.

The company is also spreading political money across party lines.

Its PAC has distributed a total of $350,000 to Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including $15,000 for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP campaign arm.

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Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wants a 50% tax on AI to establish a $7 billion sovereign wealth fund.

He also supports a permanent prohibition on developing super intelligent AI.

Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, called Wednesday for committee action on legislation imposing AI guardrails and a “kill switch.”

Some lawmakers had expected Anthropic whistleblower Jacob Coxon’s warning that AI could “kill us all” to prompt sudden legislative movement.

Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, blamed the “unnecessary hysteria” on the election being 48 days away.

He said he did not expect Congress to take action before November, while President Trump this week called fears about AI a “hoax.”

The political fight may also move beyond Washington.

California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom told Politico that he may summon a special session to address the issue, potentially bringing the conflict among technology companies into Silicon Valley’s backyard.

For now, its enormous political spending and demands for federal guardrails are feeding congressional suspicions that the loud safety crusade may come with a substantial competitive payoff.

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