What’s happened to MAGA’s $100m AI push?
A David Sacks-endorsed advocacy group said it would spend $100m promoting Trump’s AI agenda — but a defunct PAC and flop YouTube video suggest a stuttering start
At the end of March, the political battleground over AI looked set to be joined by a new heavy weight: a MAGA-friendly advocacy group with a claimed $100m war chest run by former White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich. In a statement accompanying the announcement, Trump adviser David Sacks welcomed the venture, saying it would “play a critical role in advancing the innovation agenda championed by President Trump and this administration.”
The advocacy group, established as a 501(c)(4) called Innovation Council Action, was expected to spin out a super PAC to push its deregulatory agenda, joining five others related to AI that have collectively spent more than $44m on the midterms.
Almost three months later we’ve so far heard surprisingly little from the new gorilla on the block, which reports at the time suggested was likely to spend on Trump-aligned candidates. A look through federal and state government records shows, as far as we can tell, no spending, and some slightly strange goings on.
On April 29 Charles Gantt, officer and director of the Innovation Council Action 501(c)(4), filed to dissolve it, before refiling to revoke the dissolution just 11 minutes later. Gantt is treasurer of the MAGA Inc PAC Budowich founded and used to direct.
The following day, Gantt filed to terminate a PAC named Innovation Council PAC, formed last October and of which he is listed as treasurer. In earlier filings, the PAC listed its website as InnovationCouncil.com, the same as the 501(c)(4). According to the FEC’s records, the PAC remains defunct, suggesting it is not set to be a vehicle for that $100m in political spending.
FEC filings do not list donations from Innovation Council Action to any other PAC, and Transformer can find no record of the organization spending on ads on Meta or Google either — though it does have an active X account.
When asked about the PAC’s seeming demise, a spokesperson for Innovation Council Action said: “Reporting around [Innovation Council’s] spending and structure remains accurate, and was never tied to the PAC in question [Innovation Council PAC] — that’s just the wishful thinking of those who keep failing to shop this lame story to other more reputable publications.” (Transformer did not in fact receive a tip, instead just checking the FEC site out of curiosity.)
Whatever is going on with the Innovation Council, it remains strange that its much-touted intervention has not come in time to get involved in fierce midterm primary battles in which other PACs such as Leading the Future and Public First have spent more than $22m and $13m respectively. It may, of course, be merely waiting for the actual elections in November to boost whoever the Republican candidates are.
In October, NBC News reported that the White House was displeased with AI industry donations to Leading the Future. Despite sharing major financial backers with Trump in the shape of a16z’s Marc Andreessen and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, it has supported Democrats as well as Republicans. Leading the Future’s co-lead was formerly press secretary to Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and chief of staff to Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Innovation Council was seen as a solution to this problem. As a 501(c)(4), a structure often described as a “dark money” group, it does not need to report its donors, and it does not even have to disclose how much money it has raised and spent until it files an annual report with the IRS. If it wants to spend directly on elections, however, it must leave a record — in the case of federal elections, either by telling the FEC about campaign ads it has bought, or by donating to a PAC which must then disclose the donation. State election spending is reported on a state-by-state basis. Transformer can find no records of Innovation Council Action directly spending on federal elections or donating to federal PACs.
As a 501(c)(4), Innovation Council Action can pursue advocacy work and election influence, as long as that election-related spending does not constitute the majority of its work. What little activity we’ve seen so far from the Innovation Council amounts mainly to YouTube and social media posts. In late April the group released a video on YouTube touting the achievements of American AI companies featuring a clip of Trump, while its X account recently tweeted footage from the All-In podcast, on which David Sacks is a co-host, and several positive news stories about AI. As of the time of publication, the video has 15 views.