OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia had record lobbying quarters

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It was a busy summer for AI lobbyists. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nvidia each had their highest-spending lobbying quarter between July and September, federal disclosures show. Nvidia spent the most of the group at $2.2 million, followed by Anthropic’s $2.1 million and OpenAI’s $1.5 million. Compared to other Big Tech companies with long-established presences in Washington, the sums aren’t out of the ordinary. Microsoft, for example, has spent at least $2 million a quarter going back to 2021, and Google regularly spends over $3 million, including this quarter. But it’s a clear signal that the three AI firms recognize how important shaping policy has become. Tech CEOs were already visible fixtures in Washington during this period, with many of them attending a White House lunch with President Donald Trump in late September, which resulted in a “morally binding” AI safety accord that they agreed to. The lobbying disclosures show that even more discussions were happening frequently behind the scenes, during a time just before Trump named his AI czar and task force. With Democrats expected to win back at least some control in Congress after this year’s midterm elections, AI companies may only find it more important to engage with lawmakers who see cracking down on the industry as a winning issue. Anthropic included a detailed list of bills, executive orders, and other topics it lobbied Congress and the White House about in the third quarter. Among them were AI-related provisions in the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), export control provisions in the AI Overwatch Act, Trump’s executive order renaming AI “Super Intelligence,” and the Ratepayer Protection Act, which aims to put energy costs for data centers on their developers.

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