Who's really running AI? Inside the billion-dollar battle over regulation, with Alex Bores

February 27, 2026·23 min·1 clip

A Silicon Valley super PAC has pledged $10 million to defeat Alex Bores over his AI safety bill.

AI is not abstract in this conversation. Rebecca Ballan opens with the Department of Defense pressuring Anthropic and public resistance to AI data center buildouts, then cuts through the tidy split between people who think AI will save everyone and people who think it will kill everyone. Alex Bores is the test case: someone trying to regulate AI without turning the whole debate into fear versus hype. The PAC attacks are direct. Bores says the early ads were at least honest about opposing regulation, even if they got New York budgeting rules wrong. Then the strategy gets uglier. He compares it to Fairshake's 2024 crypto playbook, where liberal politicians were painted through cultural wedge issues, while noting that this attack has not hit him yet. Palantir becomes the awkward pressure point. Bores says attacks tied him to ICE because he once worked at Palantir, even though he says he quit over that work in 2019. That tension is the political story. He also notes that people linked to the opposing super PAC do not seem bothered by Palantir for the same reason. From there, the conversation widens again. Leading the Future is one organized force against him, while Public First Action backs his side. The practical question is still regulation. Bores points listeners to a broader AI framework with 41 other subpoints instead of treating the campaign as just another messaging fight. Ballan keeps it moving: defense use, data centers, super PAC tactics, crypto, Palantir baggage, and where voters can read the proposal. The ending is plain. Bores gives his site, spells his last name, and leaves AI regulation feeling much less theoretical than usual.

As heard by us

A grounded look at AI policy shaped by money, fear, and competing narratives.

AI regulation is often cast as a clean fight between boosters and skeptics, but this conversation lands in the middle. Rebecca Ballan and Alex Bores trace the pressure around Anthropic, the backlash to data centers, and the role of campaign money while keeping the central…

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