2026-02-11T10:00:47.539Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/politics/palantir-midterms-artificial-intelligence-ai
“他在逃避自己的过去，而ICE（美国移民与海关执法局）就在我们社区里。”广告旁白说道。
广告的目标是纽约市国会候选人亚历克斯·博雷斯（Alex Bores），他曾在与国防和情报机构有着长期联系的科技公司帕兰提尔（Palantir）工作。
画面闪过博雷斯的LinkedIn页面。旁白指出帕兰提尔与美国移民与海关执法局的合作，该机构在纽约市的行动引发了左翼人士的强烈抗议。
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“ICE的运作依赖博雷斯的技术。曼哈顿不会这么蠢。”旁白说道。
出人意料的是，这则广告得到了它所谴责的行业势力的支持。其背后的超级政治行动委员会（super PAC）是去年夏天由包括帕兰提尔联合创始人乔·朗斯代尔（Joe Lonsdale）在内的科技巨头成立的新政治委员会“引领未来”（Leading The Future）的附属机构，旨在应对中期选举前日益增长的两党对人工智能的强烈反对。
“听着，我们正处于文明发展的关键时刻，对吧？”朗斯代尔去年11月在CNBC上表示，“但你们有很多疯狂的民粹主义者，他们正在做的事情会破坏这一切。我们不能让这种情况发生。”
帕兰提尔高管以及OpenAI和风投界的领袖正涉足这场政治混战。“引领未来”已承诺投入超过1亿美元支持对人工智能友好的候选人。他们还向国会领袖和唐纳德·特朗普总统的政治网络大额捐款。
今年的赌注尤其高。国会正准备为该行业制定未来十年甚至更长时间的规则，而选民对人工智能发展的后果——从能源账单到隐私问题再到失业——日益担忧。民主党几位议员已被迫退还与帕兰提尔相关捐赠者的竞选捐款，这凸显了紧张局势。
“帕兰提尔等大型科技公司近期与选举相关的活动激增，可被理解为对选举潜在后果的预防性措施。”雪城大学教授、人工智能政策学术联盟创始人哈姆迪·埃克比亚（Hamid Ekbia）表示，“具体而言，帕兰提尔因近期被曝光深度参与ICE活动而处境脆弱。”
曾在纽约州层面率先推动人工智能监管的博雷斯指责“引领未来”及其行业支持者虚伪。
“我因反对该公司与ICE的合同而辞职，选择原则而非职业生涯和数百万美元。他们从中获利，现在却用这些资金欺骗纽约民众并攻击我。”他在声明中说。
帕兰提尔未回应置评请求。
两名帕兰提尔重要利益相关者积极参与中期选举捐款：联合创始人、与副总统JD·万斯及特朗普政府其他官员关系密切的亿万富翁风投家彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel），以及公司CEO亚历克斯·卡普（Alex Karp）。
根据联邦选举委员会（FEC）记录，卡普和蒂尔去年都向与共和党国会领袖相关的委员会捐赠了数十万美元。蒂尔2025年的捐款表明他在2024年选举周期中几乎缺席后重新投入政治活动。卡普的捐赠历史则更为复杂。
FEC记录显示，2023年卡普向拜登和哈里斯的联合筹款委员会捐赠了36万美元。2024年，他向MAGA Inc.（特朗普政治组织）捐赠了100万美元。
人工智能对帕兰提尔来说是巨大红利，自2022年以来其市值飙升超过1000%。这家国防科技公司一直在利用人工智能提升其数据组织和物流方面的专业能力。
“我们的崛起，并且我们相信将继续崛起，是由美国越来越多的公司和机构推动的，他们理解人工智能的价值。”卡普本周在致股东的信中写道。
他还是人工智能发展的坚定倡导者，以绝对化的表述阐述观点。
“我们要么成为主导者，要么中国成为主导者，规则将因胜者不同而大相径庭。”卡普去年在《Axios》节目中表示，“当人们担心监控时，当然存在巨大风险，但如果美国不能领先，人们的权利将更少。”
根据联邦选举委员会记录，由行业资助的政治行动委员会“引领未来”在2025年下半年筹集了超过5000万美元，其中包括OpenAI总裁兼联合创始人格雷格·布罗克曼（Greg Brockman）及其妻子安娜（Anna）捐赠的2500万美元，以及风投公司a16z捐赠的2500万美元。
与“引领未来”合作的战略家杰西·亨特（Jesse Hunt）认为，碎片化的监管环境威胁美国竞争力。
科技行业正推动联邦标准优先于州法律。特朗普已表示支持暂停州级监管，签署行政令实施，并得到德克萨斯州共和党参议员特德·克鲁兹（Ted Cruz）提出的相关立法支持。
“我们如何走到这一步，政策有多严格？”亨特问道，“最终，我们不想因政策制定者屈服于边缘意识形态，而让全球领先的人工智能和创新领域的美国公司停滞不前。”
“引领未来”及其反对者预计今年将在纽约、加州、德克萨斯、伊利诺伊和俄亥俄州展开激烈较量。
与之抗衡的是“公共优先”（Public First）组织，由前俄克拉荷马州民主党议员布拉德·卡森（Brad Carson）和前犹他州共和党议员克里斯·斯图尔特（Chris Stewart）领导。
该组织计划筹集5000万美元，称将“专注于选举支持负责任科技政策的候选人，这些政策能减少伤害并防范人工智能的最大风险。”
“我们在‘公共优先’做的，很多时候是拯救人工智能自身。”卡森表示，“因为如果放任不管，这种‘不干涉’方法将引发公众强烈反对，而这种反对正在酝酿。人们已经在磨尖他们的‘长矛’了。”
该组织强调“尚未就支持或反对哪位候选人做出正式决定”，但提到了像博雷斯这样的候选人，他在纽约州议会任职期间发起了《负责任人工智能安全与教育法案》（RAISE法案）。
该法案将于3月生效，要求人工智能公司制定防止“重大伤害”的安全协议，包括“制造或使用化学、生物、放射或核武器”或犯罪行为，并报告开发和运营中的事故（如数据泄露或危险故障）。
寻求连任的纽约州长凯西·霍楚尔（Kathy Hochul）去年签署该法案，并在上个月的州情咨文中强调了人工智能政策的挑战。
“我们不会允许技术破坏我们的基础设施，也不会允许它破坏我们的民主。”霍楚尔说。
盖洛普去年的调查显示，80%的美国人认为政府应制定人工智能安全和数据安全规则，“即使这意味着放缓人工智能发展”。两党都担忧人工智能数据中心推高公用事业账单，以及潜在的失业和行业动荡。
从佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯到前特朗普战略家史蒂夫·班农（均为共和党人），再到佛蒙特州独立参议员伯尼·桑德斯，一个松散且跨党派的联盟决心保留各州制定自身规则的权利。
“别装作假视频或假歌曲能把我们带入乌托邦。”德桑蒂斯12月在佛罗里达州塞布林的活动中表示，他推出了“人工智能公民权利法案”，旨在提供隐私保护、国家安全限制和数据中心建设监管。
长期以来备受自由派争议的帕兰提尔，已出现在中期选举辩论中。
伊利诺伊州参议院民主党初选中领先的候选人拉贾·克里希纳穆尔蒂（Raja Krishnamoorthi）议员，在最近的初选中因接受帕兰提尔首席技术官希拉姆·桑卡尔（Shyam Sankar）的捐款（自2015年以来总计略超2.9万美元，去年捐赠7000美元）而受到质疑。
“你已经证明自己在关键时刻不会站出来——接受帕兰提尔ICE承包商、首席技术官的捐款，这为你的竞选提供资金，这表明这不是你的优先事项。”克里希纳穆尔蒂的竞争对手之一、伊利诺伊州副州长朱莉安娜·斯特拉顿（Juliana Stratton）指责道。
“至于我收到的帕兰提尔高管的捐款，当我得知时，我们已将其捐赠给伊利诺伊州移民权利组织。”克里希纳穆尔蒂回应。
随着公众监督增加，其他民主党人也在退还与帕兰提尔相关的捐款——包括一个在线追踪器，专门统计与该公司相关的政治捐赠顶级接受者。
在帕兰提尔总部所在地科罗拉多州，参议员约翰·希肯卢珀（John Hickenlooper）和众议员杰森·克劳（Jason Crow）本周宣布，将效仿克里希纳穆尔蒂，向移民权利组织捐赠数万美元，以抵消多年来来自帕兰提尔员工的捐款，此前《科罗拉多太阳报》多次询问他们的筹款记录。
该公司的争议地位也反映了对人工智能及其后果的更广泛担忧。
“我还没看到人工智能解决癌症，我现在就希望看到它做到。”伊利诺伊州第7选区民主党反垄断律师里德·肖沃尔特（Reed Showalter）表示，“后果主要是增加水电成本，以及中长期内该地区、州和全国人民的就业和工资下降。”
“公共优先”的前犹他州共和党议员斯图尔特承认，政策制定者面临着理解这个发展迅速且难以捉摸的技术的挑战。
“我们都在努力找到更周全的解决方案，因为这是个全新的问题。”斯图尔特表示，“现在这还不是党派问题，希望永远不会成为党派问题。”
他敦促候选人认真对待选民关切，并提出应对人工智能直接影响的具体方案。
“在我12年的国会议员生涯中，我不记得有人讨论过电费的问题，对吧？但这将成为一个议题。”他说，“他们必须准备好，不只是耸耸肩说‘这是个问题’，我们必须说‘这是我们认为应该采取的措施’。”
How Palantir and AI money is shaping the midterms
2026-02-11T10:00:47.539Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/politics/palantir-midterms-artificial-intelligence-ai
“He’s running from his past, while ICE is in our communities,” the ad’s narrator says.
The target of the ad is Alex Bores, a congressional candidate in New York City who used to work for Palantir, the tech company with long ties to defense and intelligence agencies.
An image flashes of Bores’ LinkedIn page. The narrator notes Palantir’s work with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose operations in New York City have sparked outcry on the left.
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“ICE is powered by Bores’ tech. Manhattan is smarter than that,” the narrator says.
In a twist, the ad is backed by some of the very industry forces it condemns. The super PAC behind it is an affiliate of a new political committee, Leading The Future, launched last summer by a group of tech giants – including Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale – to confront a growing bipartisan backlash to artificial intelligence ahead of the midterm elections.
“Listen, we are on the verge of something amazing for our civilization, right?” Lonsdale said on CNBC in November. “But you have a lot of crazy populists, you have a patchwork of just really intense stuff they are doing that would just break all of this. And we can’t let that happen.”
Palantir executives and leaders from OpenAI and venture capital are wading into the political fray, with more than $100 million already pledged by Leading the Future to boost candidates friendly to AI. They’re also cutting big checks to congressional leaders and President Donald Trump’s political network.
The stakes are especially high this year. Congress is poised to craft the rules of the road for industry for the next decade or longer, and voters are growing increasingly worried about the consequences of AI development, from energy bills to privacy to job loss. Underscoring the tension, several Democrats have been pressured to return campaign contributions from Palantir-linked donors.
“The recent surge in election-related activities of big tech companies such as Palantir and OpenAI can be understood as preemptive measures against potential fallouts from the election,” said Syracuse University professor Hamid Ekbia, the founding director of the Academic Alliance for AI Policy. “Palantir, in specific, is in a vulnerable position because of recent revelations about its heavy involvement with ICE activities.”
Bores, who led one of the first major efforts to regulate artificial intelligence at the state level in New York, accused Leading The Future and its industry backers of hypocrisy.
“I quit their company over its ICE contract, choosing principle over my career and millions of dollars. They profited off of it, and are now using those funds to lie to New Yorkers and attack me,” he said in a statement.
Palantir did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Two prominent Palantir stakeholders have been active midterm donors: Peter Thiel, a co-founder and billionaire venture capitalist with close ties to Vice President JD Vance and others in the Trump administration, and the company’s CEO, Alex Karp.
Both Karp and Thiel gave hundreds of thousands of dollars last year to committees aligned with Republican congressional leadership, according to FEC records. Thiel’s giving in 2025 signals reengagement after he largely sat out the 2024 election cycle. Karp has a more enigmatic donor history.
FEC records show that in 2023, Karp gave $360,000 to the joint fundraising committee for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. A year later, he contributed $1 million to MAGA Inc.
Artificial intelligence has been a boon for Palantir, which has seen its market capitalization skyrocket by more than 1000% since 2022. The defense tech firm has worked to leverage AI alongside its expertise organizing data and logistics.
“Our rise has been, and we believe will continue to be, driven by an increasingly discerning set of companies and institutions in the United States that understand the value of artificial intelligence,” Karp wrote to shareholders this week.
And he’s been an outspoken advocate for AI development, framing the argument in absolutist terms.
“We are going to be the dominant player, or China is going to be the dominant player, and there will just be very different rules depending on who wins,” Karp said on “The Axios Show” last year. “So, when people are worried about surveillance, of course, there are huge dangers there, but you know, you will have far fewer rights if America’s not in the lead.”
Leading the Future, the industry-funded PAC, raised more than $50 million in the second half of 2025, including $25 million from OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, as well as $25 million from the venture capital firm a16z, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Jesse Hunt, a strategist working with LTF, argued that a fractured regulatory landscape is a threat to American competitiveness.
The tech industry is pushing for a federal standard that would preempt state laws. Trump has voiced support for a moratorium on state regulations, signing an executive order to do so, and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz proposed legislation to that end.
“How doomer do we get here and how restrictive are the policies that one is advocating for?” Hunt asked. “Ultimately, what we don’t want to do is stunt innovation and allow what is now the global leader in artificial intelligence and the innovation sector to flatline because policymakers fall prey to fringe ideology.”
LTF – and its opponents – expect to face off this year across New York, California, Texas, Illinois and Ohio.
Countering LTF is Public First, an organization led by former Oklahoma Democratic Rep. Brad Carson and former Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart.
The group is aiming to raise $50 million in funding and says it will “focus on electing candidates who champion responsible tech policies that reduce harm and protect against AI’s worst risks.”
“What we’re trying to do at Public First is, in many ways, saving AI from itself,” said Carson. “Because left alone, this kind of no touch approach is going to lead to an incredible public backlash that is already brewing. People are already sharpening their pitchforks.”
While emphasizing that “we haven’t made any formal decisions about who we’re going to support or not yet,” the group pointed to candidates like Bores, who sponsored the Responsible AI Safety and Education, or RAISE, Act while serving in the New York state legislature.
When it takes effect in March, the legislation will require AI companies to come up with safety protocols aimed at preventing “critical harm” – such as “the creation or use of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon,” the bill states, or the conduct of a crime – and report incidents in development and operations, like data breaches or dangerous malfunctions.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection this year, signed it into law last year and called out AI policy challenges in her State of the State address last month.
“We will not allow technology to undermine our infrastructure, and we won’t let it undermine our democracy either,” Hochul said.
A Gallup survey last year found that 80% of Americans believe the government should maintain rules for AI safety and data security, “even if it means developing AI capabilities more slowly.” And there are bipartisan concerns about AI data centers driving up utility bills along with potential job losses and industry disruptions.
And a loose and politically broad coalition, from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, both Republicans, to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is determined to preserve states’ rights to make their own rules.
“Let’s not try to act like some type of fake videos or fake songs are going to deliver us to some kind of utopia,” DeSantis said at a December event in Sebring, Florida, touting his proposal for state legislation – a “Citizen Bill of Rights for AI” – providing privacy protections, national security restrictions, and regulations for data center construction.
Long controversial with liberals, Palantir is already coming up in midterm debates.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the front-runner in the Illinois Senate Democratic primary, was challenged in a recent primary debate for his history of campaign contributions from Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, totaling just over $29,000 since 2015, including $7,000 last year.
“You already demonstrated that you’re not going to show up when it matters – to take money from one of the ICE contractors, the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir, and that funds your campaign, that demonstrates that that’s not what’s your priority,” said Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, one of Krishnamoorthi’s rivals.
“As for the donation that I received from a Palantir exec, when it came to my attention, we donated it to Illinois migrant rights groups,” Krishnamoorthi responded.
Other Democrats are also returning campaign contributions from Palantir as public scrutiny grows – including an online tracker highlighting top recipients of political donations linked to the company.
In Colorado, where Palantir is headquartered, Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Jason Crow both announced this week that, like Krishnamoorthi, they’d give tens of thousands of dollars to immigrant rights groups to offset years of donations from Palantir employees, after the Colorado Sun made multiple inquiries about their fundraising records.
The company’s lightning-rod status also reflects broader concerns about artificial intelligence and its consequences.
“I have yet to see AI solve cancer, and I would love to see it right now,” said Reed Showalter, a Democratic antitrust attorney running in Illinois’ 7th District. “The consequences have largely been increased costs for electricity and water and a medium-term decrease in employment and wages for the people in both the district, the state, and the country.”
Stewart, the former Utah Republican congressman with Public First, acknowledged the difficulty policymakers face grappling with a poorly understood and rapidly developing technology.
“All of us are trying to develop, you know, more thoughtful answers on this, because this is such a new issue,” Stewart said, adding that “it’s not a partisan issue right now, and I hope it doesn’t become a partisan issue.”
He urged candidates to take voters’ concerns seriously and offer specific solutions on how to deal with AI’s immediate effects.
“In all my 12 years in Congress, I don’t remember ever having a conversation with someone about electrical bills, right? And it’s gonna come up,” he said. “And they’ve got to be prepared to, you know, not just kind of shrug and say, ‘yeah, it’s a problem.’ We’ve got to be prepared to say, ‘this is what we think we should do.’”