Public First Action and its affiliated super PACs, which Semafor describes as Anthropic-linked, wrote in a memo that they have “$30 million currently in the bank” for the next phase of their campaign, according to Semafor, which says the memo was shared first with it on 9 November.
The memo’s 2027 goals, as Semafor reports them, include getting Congress to pass AI laws that don’t preempt state legislation, supporting pro-AI safety candidates and rebutting pro-AI messaging. Its 2028 target list names six tiers of races, by our count.
Business Pill · Guardrails
A short Business Engineer explainer on AI guardrails. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Public First or the memo.
The key insight: A memo from Public First Action and its affiliated super PACs, which Semafor describes as Anthropic-linked, says the network has $30 million in the bank, according to Semafor, and sets 2027 goals including AI laws from Congress that don’t preempt state legislation.
Semafor reports that Public First, “which gets significant funding from Anthropic and backs AI guardrails”, wrote that Leading the Future, the top pro-AI super PAC, had a “crash out”.
The memo also warned, per Semafor: “It would be a mistake to read this cycle and Leading the Future’s decline as the end of Big Tech’s AI political project”.
It added, as quoted by Semafor: “It is paramount that a pro-safety organization be prepared to counter, toxify, and ultimately overcome such an industry-backed opposition campaign”.
From the 2026 result to the 2028 target list: the Public First memo as quoted by Semafor on 9 November 2026, with our earlier FEC/AP count. 97.5% and the six-tier count are our arithmetic.
The 2028 Target List
Semafor quotes the memo’s goal for the next presidential cycle: “Between now and 2028, we will make sure that AI is a top-tier issue in the presidential race, in every House and Senate race, and in gubernatorial, attorney general, and state legislative races”.
By our count, that sentence names six tiers of races: presidential, House, Senate, gubernatorial, attorney general and state legislative. The memo’s federal goal, as Semafor reports it, is AI law that does not preempt the states.
How the Network Did in 2026
Our earlier count, in AI Safety PACs Put 97.5% on the Winning Side; Industry 52.6%, found that 97.5% of the money the Public First network reported spending in AP-called general-election races went into races that ended its way, against 52.6% for the Leading the Future network, from FEC filings and AP race calls.
Bloomberg reported on 7 November that Public First “poured more than $63 million into the midterms”, “according to the group’s numbers”, and, as summarised by Techmeme, that 10 of the 17 congressional candidates it backed won. Politico has reported that Anthropic gave $20 million from its corporate account in February to Public First’s associated nonprofit.
As we read the memo excerpts, the network is planning beyond one election: Semafor quotes a target list running to 2028, not a single next race.
As we read Semafor’s summary, the memo’s federal ask is about who sets the rules, Congress or the states, rather than a named bill; the article names none.
Public First memo, as quoted by Semafor, 9 November 2026
“It would be a mistake to read this cycle and Leading the Future’s decline as the end of Big Tech’s AI political project”
Three Implications
FOR AI COMPANIES Semafor reports the memo’s 2027 goal of AI laws from Congress that don’t preempt state legislation.
FOR THE INDUSTRY PACS Semafor reports the memo calls for a pro-safety organization to be prepared to counter an industry-backed opposition campaign.
FOR 2028 Semafor quotes the memo’s aim to make AI a top-tier issue from the presidential race to state legislative races.
The analysis says: “The governance layer sits at the intersection of capability, regulation, national security, access control, and geopolitical alignment.”
As we read it, the memo is a bid to shape the regulation part of that layer: whether Congress or the states write the rules. The analysis predates the memo and does not discuss Public First.
What Is Not Established
Semafor quotes parts of the memo; we have not seen the full document. The article does not name the bills, members or candidates the groups will back, or say how the $30 million will be split across the six tiers of races. Leading the Future’s response is not reported.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
The Great Convergence of Capital, Power, and Geopolitics
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a supply story, and last week as a credit story. This week it was priced as a permission story, and the answer arrived as a cost, not a ban.
A memo from Public First Action and its affiliated super PACs, shared first with Semafor, says the network has $30 million in the bank and sets 2027 goals of AI laws that don’t preempt state legislation. By our count, its 2028 target list names six tiers of races, from the presidential race to state legislatures.
A note on sourcing. Memo quotations and figures are as reported by Semafor on 9 November 2026; we have not seen the full memo. The 2026 spending share is our earlier count from FEC filings and AP race calls; the six-tier count is ours.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
