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Andreessen Horowitz is putting its money where its mouth is.
The firm, also known as A16z, launched a new political action committee on Monday alongside a slate of Silicon Valley heavyweights. The PAC, called Leading the Future, aims to shape US artificial intelligence policies. Technocrats have already pumped more than $100 million into the initiative, according to a press release.
Palantir cofounder and defense tech investor Joe Lonsdale, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman and his wife Anna, an AI search startup Perplexity, and longtime venture capitalist Ron Conway are backing the effort. Leading the Future plans to raise more money and gain more backers in the next few weeks.
Tech support for PACs is part of a well-worn playbook in Silicon Valley.
In late 2024, A16z dumped over $23 million into crypto PAC Fairshake and others in preparation for the 2026 midterm election cycle. In the same year, A16z cofounders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz each donated $2.5 million to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC.
In an X post on Monday, A16z’s head of government affairs Collin McCune wrote that Leading the Future “will support leaders who understand the promise of AI.”
“AI is so important it transcends Democrats and Republicans,” Conway wrote on X. “It is in America’s interest to lead.”
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Leading the Future comes after an election year that drew intense interest from Silicon Valley. And Capitol Hill has been courting AI leaders, too. At July’s Winning the AI Race Summit — where investors and top government officials, including President Trump, spoke — the administration rolled out its AI Action Plan, which called for faster approval for new data centers and urged AI labs to strip their models of language the Trump administration deemed as “ideological bias.”
The PAC also taps into Silicon Valley’s growing fears about losing the AI race to China, which intensified in the wake of DeepSeek’s R1 model release in January. Leading the Future also aims to thwart policies techies think will hinder AI innovation and give China a lead on American tech, according to the press release.
“Make no mistake: this is also a race with China,” McCune continued on X. “If we don’t have the right policies, we risk ceding the future of AI—and with it, America’s economic strength and national security.”
Have a tip? Reach Julia Hornstein at jhornstein@insider.com or securely at juliah.22 on Signal using a non-work phone and wifi connection. Follow her @Julia Hornstein on X.
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