The GOP consultancy at the heart of the industry’s AI fight
How a network of Targeted Victory alumni are campaigning against AI laws
The AI industry’s lobbying operation went into overdrive in 2025, with $100m super PACs, associated non-profits, and multi-million dollar ad campaigns.
But while the focus is new, the tactics and personnel are straight out of the playbook pioneered by crypto, with particularly close ties to one of the key players in that campaign to capture Washington: Republican consulting firm Targeted Victory.
At the forefront of the AI industry’s new efforts is Leading the Future, a super PAC network backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, among others. Self-described as “a national political operation committed to ensuring the United States leads the world in AI innovation, development, and governance,” the group’s first target is Alex Bores, the New York assembly member who is now running for Congress.
Leading the Future is run by Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto. Moffatt is the co-founder of Targeted Victory, and recently became global chair for communications and advocacy at Stagwell, Targeted Victory’s parent company. Vlasto, who previously worked for Andrew Cuomo and Chuck Schumer, is also a spokesperson for Fairshake, the crypto super PAC network.
Leading the Future and its two associated PACs — Think Big, focused on Democrats, and its Republican counterpart, American Mission — are also working with an “affiliated” non-profit, Build American AI, run by Nathan Leamer. Leamer was previously vice president of public affairs at Targeted Victory, and he continues to run the Digital First Project, which he told Transformer is “a project within” a non-profit called American Resolve. American Resolve’s president, per its most recent IRS filings, was also an executive at Targeted Victory.
According to company filings, Build American AI’s legal president is Jill Barclay, who was previously a managing director at Targeted Victory. Barclay was involved in the crypto industry’s campaigns, too: she was treasurer of America Forward Now, which funded Digital Innovation for America, a group reportedly funded by Andreessen Horowitz and which “attacked politicians seen as skeptical of cryptocurrencies.” Transformer was unable to reach Barclay for comment.
Another former Targeted Victory executive, Josh Arnold, joined Andreessen Horowitz earlier this year, where he is registered as a lobbyist on AI issues.
Targeted Victory has previously come under fire for its work with Meta. In 2022, the Washington Post revealed that Meta had hired Targeted Victory allegedly to “orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.”
Unsurprisingly, the new AI efforts appear to be replicating many of the tactics used on behalf of crypto. In that campaign, one organization — Stand With Crypto, run by Targeted Victory vice president Logan Dobson — scored candidates based on their level of “support” for crypto. A “candidate questionnaire” from Build American AI asks candidates for their opinions on various AI policy questions, suggesting it may be planning to take a similar approach.
As of this month, the work has ramped up in earnest. Last week, Think Big spent $118,350 opposing Bores’ campaign in New York. Moffatt and Vlasto accused Bores of pushing “ideological and politically motivated legislation that would handcuff not only New York’s, but the entire country’s ability to lead on AI jobs and innovation.” Shortly after the ads began running, Transformer reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering watering down Bores’ RAISE Act.
“A small group of megadonors is using its financial firepower to pressure candidates and officeholders in both parties to fall in line with the AI industry’s policy agenda — regardless of what voters actually want,” Brendan Fischer, strategic investigations director at the Campaign Legal Center, told Transformer.
Leading the Future’s Vlasto and Moffat told the Wall Street Journal earlier this year: “There is a vast force out there that’s looking to slow down AI deployment, prevent the American worker from benefiting from the US leading in global innovation and job creation and erect a patchwork of regulation. This is the ecosystem that is going to be the counterforce going into next year.”
AI safety advocates have indeed launched their own super PAC efforts, albeit with less funding. Polling, however, suggests that Americans are on their side. “[The] AI industry … [is] widely disliked, but they have one advantage, and that is unlimited resources,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, said. Next year’s midterms will show exactly what those resources can buy.
It’s striking how quickly AI has adopted the same playbook as crypto big money, super PACs, and familiar consultants. What worries me is that the conversation about regulation risks being shaped more by lobbying power than by public interest.
The Targeted Victory alumni network running AI lobbying is basically the crypto playbook 2.0, right down to the same personnel and tactics. The $118k spend against Bores in a single week shows how aggresively they're willing to deploy capital to kill state-level regulation before it can spread. I worked adjacent to political consulting and the Build American AI candidate questionnaire is straight from the Stand With Crypto scoring model, which was devastatingly effective at forcing electeds to publicly commit before they understood the full implications. The real story here is preemptive regulatory capture happening at scale while public attention is still fragmented.