发布时间:2026年2月11日,美国东部时间凌晨5:00 / CNN政治频道
作者:大卫·赖特(David Wright)

“他在逃避自己的过去,而移民与海关执法局(ICE)却在我们的社区里横行。”广告旁白说道。
这则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Palantir工作。
画面闪过博雷斯的LinkedIn页面。旁白指出Palantir与美国移民与海关执法局(ICE)的合作,而该机构在纽约市的行动已在左翼引发强烈抗议。
“ICE的运作由博雷斯的技术提供动力。曼哈顿比这更明智。”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)是一个名为“引领未来”(Leading The Future)的新政治委员会的附属机构。该委员会去年夏天由包括Palantir联合创始人乔·朗斯代尔(Joe Lonsdale)在内的一群科技巨头发起,旨在应对中期选举前两党对人工智能日益增长的强烈反对。
“听着,我们正处于文明将迎来惊人进步的边缘,对吧?”朗斯代尔在去年11月接受CNBC采访时表示,“但你们有很多疯狂的民粹主义者,他们在做的一些零散而激烈的事情会彻底破坏这一切。我们不能让这种情况发生。”
Palantir高管以及OpenAI和风险投资界的领袖正在卷入这场政治纷争。“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巨额捐款。
今年的赌注尤其高。国会正准备为该行业制定未来十年或更长时间的规则,而选民对人工智能发展的后果日益担忧,从能源账单到隐私保护再到失业问题。这种紧张局势得到凸显,几名民主党人已被迫退还与Palantir相关捐赠者的竞选捐款。
“像Palantir和OpenAI这样的大型科技公司近期增加的与选举相关的活动,可以被理解为对选举可能产生的后果的预防性措施。”锡拉丘兹大学教授哈米德·埃克比亚(Hamid Ekbia)表示,他是人工智能政策学术联盟(Academic Alliance for AI Policy)的创始人兼主任。“具体而言,Palantir处于弱势地位,因为最近有揭露其深度参与ICE活动。”

曾领导纽约州首个主要人工智能监管努力的博雷斯指责“引领未来”及其行业支持者虚伪。
“我因ICE合同而离开公司,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人并攻击我。”他在一份声明中表示。
Palantir未回应多次置评请求。
资金流向分析
两名Palantir主要利益相关者是中期选举的活跃捐赠者:彼得·蒂尔(Peter Thiel),联合创始人兼亿万富翁风险投资家,与副总统JD·万斯(JD Vance)及特朗普政府其他人士关系密切;以及公司首席执行官亚历克斯·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导层结盟的委员会捐赠了数十万美元。蒂尔2025年的捐赠表明,他在2024年选举周期基本缺席后重新参与政治。卡普的捐赠历史则更难捉摸。
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。一年后,他向“让美国再次伟大”(MAGA Inc.)捐赠了100万美元。


人工智能成为Palantir的巨大福音。自2022年以来,该公司市值飙升超过1000%。这家国防科技公司一直致力于将人工智能与其数据和物流组织专长结合起来。
“我们的崛起以及我们相信将继续的崛起,是由美国境内越来越多了解人工智能价值的公司和机构推动的。”卡普本周在致股东的信中写道。
他一直是人工智能发展的直言不讳的倡导者,以绝对化的措辞阐述这一论点。
“我们将成为主导者,否则中国将成为主导者,而规则将因谁获胜而大不相同。”卡普去年在《Axios Show》节目中表示,“所以,当人们担心监控时,当然,那里存在巨大危险,但你们知道,如果美国不在领先地位,人们的权利将会少得多。”
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到美国的竞争力。
科技行业正推动联邦标准以优先于州法律。特朗普已表示支持暂停州级监管,签署了一项行政命令,并得到了执行。德克萨斯州共和党参议员泰德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)也提出了相关立法。
“我们如何走到这种绝望的境地,以及我们所倡导的政策有多严格?”亨特问道,“最终,我们不想做的是扼杀创新,让如今在人工智能和创新领域处于全球领先地位的美国陷入停滞,因为政策制定者屈服于极端意识形态。”
组织反制力量
“引领未来”及其反对者预计今年将在纽约、加利福尼亚、德克萨斯、伊利诺伊和俄亥俄州展开激烈较量。
作为反制,“公共优先”(Public First)组织应运而生,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5000万美元资金,并表示将“重点选举那些倡导负责任的科技政策、减少危害并防范人工智能最坏风险的候选人。”
“我们在公共优先组织所做的,在很多方面是拯救人工智能免于自我毁灭。”卡森表示,“因为如果放任不管,这种‘无为而治’的做法将导致已经在酝酿的巨大公众反弹。人们已经在磨刀霍霍了。”
尽管尚未正式决定支持或反对哪些候选人,但该组织特别提到了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》(Responsible AI Safety and Education, RAISE Act)。
该法案将于3月生效,要求人工智能公司制定旨在防止“重大危害”(如“制造或使用化学、生物、放射或核武器”或犯罪行为)的安全协议,并报告开发和运营中的事件,如数据泄露或危险故障。
今年寻求连任的纽约州州长凯西·霍楚尔(Kathy Hochul)去年签署了该法案,并在上个月的州长国情咨文演讲中指出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。”霍楚尔说道。
去年的盖洛普民调显示,80%的美国人认为政府应该为人工智能安全和数据安全制定规则,“即使这意味着人工智能发展速度会放缓”。并且,两党都对人工智能数据中心可能推高公用事业账单、造成失业以及行业动荡表示担忧。
一个松散但跨党派的联盟——从佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯(Ron DeSantis)到前特朗普战略家史蒂夫·班农(Steve Bannon)(均为共和党人),再到独立的佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)——决心维护各州制定自身规则的权利。
“让我们不要表现得好像假视频或假歌曲能把我们带到某种乌托邦。”德桑蒂斯在去年12月佛罗里达州塞布林的一次活动中表示,他正在推销自己的州级立法提案——《人工智能公民权利法案》,该法案提供隐私保护、国家安全限制以及数据中心建设的监管。
Palantir在民主党初选中面临攻击
Palantir长期以来一直受到自由派的争议,现在已在中期选举辩论中频繁出现。
在伊利诺伊州参议院民主党初选中领先的众议员拉贾·克里希纳莫尔蒂(Raja Krishnamoorthi)最近在辩论中因自2015年以来从Palantir首席技术官希亚姆·桑卡尔(Shyam Sankar)那里收到的竞选捐款(总计超过2.9万美元,包括去年的7000美元)而受到抨击。
“你已经证明,当需要行动时你却缺席——接受来自一个ICE承包商(Palantir首席技术官)的资金并资助你的竞选,这表明这不是你优先考虑的事情。”克里希纳莫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)说道。
“至于我从Palantir高管那里收到的捐款,当我得知此事后,我们已将其捐赠给伊利诺伊州移民权利组织。”克里希纳莫尔蒂回应道。
随着公众监督的增强,其他民主党人也在退还与Palantir相关的竞选捐款。包括一个在线追踪器,该追踪器突出显示了与该公司有关联的主要政治捐款接受者。
在Palantir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,在《科罗拉多太阳报》(Colorado Sun)多次询问其筹款记录后,他们将向移民权利组织捐赠数万美元,以抵消多年来从Palantir员工那里收到的捐款。
该公司的争议地位也反映了人们对人工智能及其后果的广泛担忧。
“我还没有看到人工智能解决癌症,我现在非常希望它能做到。”在伊利诺伊州第7选区参选的民主党反垄断律师里德·肖沃尔特(Reed Showalter)表示,“后果主要是电力和水费增加,以及本地区、本州和全国人民的就业和工资在中期出现下降。”
“公共优先”组织的前犹他州共和党议员斯图尔特承认,政策制定者在应对这个知之甚少且发展迅速的技术时面临着困难。
“我们所有人都在努力提出更周全的解决方案,因为这是一个全新的问题。”斯图尔特表示,“现在这不是一个党派问题,我希望它不会成为一个党派问题。”
他敦促候选人认真对待选民的担忧,并提出具体的解决方案来应对人工智能的直接影响。
“在我12年的国会议员生涯中,我不记得有人和我讨论过电费问题,对吧?而这个问题即将出现。”他说,“他们必须准备好,而不是耸耸肩说‘是的,这是个问题’。我们必须准备好说‘这是我们认为应该采取的措施’。”
How Palantir and AI money is shaping the midterms
Published Feb 11, 2026, 5:00 AM ET / CNN Politics
By David Wright
Voting booths are seen at a polling station in Eagle Pass, Texas, during the 2022 midterm elections.
Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images/File
“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.
“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.”
Assemblymember Alex Bores speaks at the State Capitol in Albany New York, in May 2025.
Kena Betancur/AP
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.
A look at the money
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.
Peter Thiel speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference in Miami, Florida, in April 2022.
Marco Bello/Getty Images/File
Alex Karp speaks onstage during The New York Times DealBook Summit 2025 in New York in December 2025.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images for The New York Times
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.”
An effort to organize on the other side
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.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks during her State of the State address in Albany, New York, on January 13.
Heather Ainsworth/Bloomberg/Getty Images
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.
Palantir faces attack in Democratic primaries
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.
Signage for Palantir is seen during the Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exposition in Washington, DC, in October 2024.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
“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.’”