Meta is now mobilizing Super PACs to fight state AI laws

Walk through the halls of any state capitol in the US today, and you’ll hear one topic echoing louder than most – how to regulate artificial intelligence. Lawmakers are flooded with bills on deepfakes, data privacy, and job loss. Parents worry about how chatbots interact with children. Artists argue about stolen work. And hovering over it all are tech giants like Meta, who say a patchwork of state laws could stall America’s lead in the AI race.

Meta’s answer has been to fight back, not in court but in politics. The company is putting millions of dollars into a new super PAC (Political Action Committee) called the American Technology Excellence Project, designed to back candidates who favour AI development and to fight against state-level restrictions. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and individuals, giving Meta a powerful lever to influence upcoming elections.

This comes as more than 1,000 AI-related bills were introduced across all 50 states this year alone. California, often a bellwether for tech regulation, has already passed two bills awaiting the governor’s signature, one of them aimed at restricting AI companion chatbots to better protect minors. Meta, already under scrutiny after leaked documents showed its chatbots having “romantic” conversations with kids, is leaning hard on the argument of parental control to frame its push.

Industry rivals are moving in the same direction. OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz recently launched a Silicon Valley super PAC with $100 million behind it. Earlier this year, a proposal to block states from regulating AI for a decade nearly slipped into the federal budget. Washington may be cautious, but Silicon Valley clearly isn’t waiting around.

For users, the fight has less to do with complex policy details than with how quickly their tools evolve. If states succeed in writing stricter rules, development could splinter across jurisdictions. If Meta and its allies win, the pace of AI progress may accelerate, but so will the concentration of power in the hands of the biggest players.

Meta hasn’t said which states it will target or how broad its effort will be. What’s clear is that the battle over AI will not just play out in research labs or courtrooms, but at the ballot box. The outcome will shape how this technology integrates into our daily lives.