Meta is building a bipartisan team of Washington veterans to deepen its relationships with Democrats while keeping its standing with Republicans, Axios reported on 31 October. Among the new hires are Michael Hacker, a longtime aide to Rep. Jim Clyburn, and Nick Schmit, a former top aide to Biden Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. CNBC’s “Squawk Box” discussed the report on 2 November, the day before the midterm elections.
Meta’s own federal lobbying spend barely moved. Its in-house LD-2 filing for the third quarter reports $5.88 million in expenses, against $5.84 million a year earlier, a rise of 0.7% by our arithmetic. Anthropic’s in-house spend rose to $2.11 million from $1.01 million over the same period, and OpenAI’s to $1.53 million from $0.92 million.
The key insight:Meta is adding Democratic and Republican Washington veterans to its policy team, Axios reports, while its in-house federal lobbying spend held at $5.88 million in the third quarter, against $5.84 million a year earlier; Anthropic’s rose 109% and OpenAI’s 66% over the same period, by our arithmetic.
According to Axios, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta president and vice chairman Dina Powell McCormick met in August with the Democratic House Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Innovation Economy, at the invitation of Rep. Josh Gottheimer. The executives discussed the company’s AI strategy, including its infrastructure build-out and investment plans, with Gottheimer and co-chairs including Rep. Ted Lieu and Rep. Valerie Foushee.
Gottheimer called the meeting “incredibly productive” in a phone call with Axios. Axios reports that the commission was particularly interested in Meta’s local data center investments, including Louisiana, “to understand the benefits they’re offering to the local communities.”
In-house federal lobbying expenses reported on LD-2 filings for the third quarter of 2025 and 2026: Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI. Source: LDA.gov lobbying disclosure filings. Percentage changes are our arithmetic; outside-firm fees are excluded.
Who Meta Hired
Axios lists hires on both sides. On the Democratic side: Michael Hacker joined as VP of compute initiatives, and Nick Schmit as director of strategic partnership management. On the Republican side: Josh Raffel, who worked with Powell McCormick in the first Trump administration, also joined as VP of compute initiatives, and Pat Trueman, a former senior official on Trump’s 2024 campaign, joined Meta’s U.S. policy operation.
The hires follow news that chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan plans to leave next year, as we reported on 20 October. Axios reports that Brian Rice, a former aide to John Kerry, leads U.S. government affairs, Tucker Bounds heads global communications and C.J. Mahoney, a former Trump administration official, is chief legal officer. Meta did not comment on the meeting or the hires, Axios says.
The Lobbying Numbers
The LD-2 filings on LDA.gov show a different pattern from the hiring. Meta’s in-house spend of $5.88 million in the third quarter is 1.6 times Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s in-house spend combined ($3.64 million), by our arithmetic. Meta also paid 21 outside firms that reported income for the quarter, up from 19 a year earlier, by our count of the filings.
For the AI labs the growth is in the rate, not the level: Anthropic’s in-house spend rose 109% and OpenAI’s 66% year on year, by our arithmetic. We reported on Anthropic’s outside firms earlier today.
Axios says Meta wants to present its infrastructure spending in places such as Texas, Indiana and Oregon as bipartisan investments in local communities, and is funding a $1 billion Future Is for Everyone Fund for communities affected by its expansion.
The Structural Read
As we read the filings, Meta’s change is in who it hires rather than in how much it reports spending: its in-house LD-2 total moved 0.7% while its roster of outside firms with reported income went from 19 to 21.
As we read Axios, the hires sit under titles tied to compute and partnerships, such as VP of compute initiatives, which links the political team to the data center build-out that the Democratic commission asked about.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), on the August meeting with Zuckerberg and Powell McCormick, as quoted by Axios
“incredibly productive”
Three Implications
FOR META Axios reports Meta wants to present its infrastructure spending in Texas, Indiana and Oregon as bipartisan investments in local communities, backed by a $1 billion Future Is for Everyone Fund.
FOR THE AI LABS Anthropic’s in-house lobbying spend rose to $2.11 million from $1.01 million and OpenAI’s to $1.53 million from $0.92 million; Meta’s $5.88 million is still 1.6 times the two combined, by our arithmetic.
FOR CONGRESS Axios reports that Gottheimer’s commission is trying to put together a legislative framework for AI and asked Meta about the local benefits of its data centers.
The framework reads: “The supercycle has a ceiling now, and the ceiling is political.”
As we read it, the framework treats governance as a layer that can reprice everything beneath it; Meta’s hires show a company staffing that layer with both parties before the vote. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss Meta.
Axios does not give a hiring budget, a head count for the new team or any political contribution figures, and Meta did not comment. LD-2 filings report lobbying spend only, not campaign or super PAC money. Nothing in the sources says how the new hires will change Meta’s lobbying spend in the fourth quarter.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Anthropic’s Reality Check, The Capital Squeeze, & The New World Order
This week’s issue: for two years the AI build-out was priced as a growthstory. This week it started being priced as a credit story.
Meta is adding Democratic and Republican veterans to its policy team on the eve of the midterms, Axios reports, while its in-house lobbying spend held at $5.88 million in the third quarter. The labs are growing faster from a smaller base: Anthropic’s in-house spend more than doubled and OpenAI’s rose 66%, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Meta’s hires, the August meeting and the quotes are as reported by Axios on 31 October 2026; Meta did not comment to Axios. Lobbying figures are from LD-2 filings on LDA.gov for the third quarters of 2025 and 2026, in-house registrant expenses. Percentages, ratios and firm counts are our arithmetic.
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.
