Meta’s hard and early pivot into artificial intelligence hasn’t exactly gone as planned, with tens of billions of investment dollars sunk into middling models, departmental restructurings, and clashing visions. In technical terms, the company remains an AI also-ran. In another way, though, it’s emerging as an industry leader: It’s spending a ton of money on politics.

Regarding regulation and national law, firms like Meta are, for now, in reasonably good shape. They have an administration that’s broadly deregulatory and specifically pro–AI industry and has mostly limited its threats of intervention to complaints about “wokeness” — a problem for a company like Anthropic, perhaps, but maybe less so for ones like Meta that preemptively ponied up and fell in line. Plenty of money will be spent by the AI industry on national politics, of course (OpenAI president Greg Brockman recently became a Trump PAC megadonor), but for now, AI firms are pushing further into state and local politics and Meta is spending a lot. According to the New York Times:

Meta is preparing to spend $65 million this year to boost state politicians who are friendly to the artificial intelligence industry, beginning this week in Texas and Illinois, according to company representatives … Political operatives tied to A.I. interests have focused this election cycle on state capitols out of concern that states were developing a patchwork of laws that would stifle A.I. development.

Meta is preparing to spend $65 million this year to boost state politicians who are friendly to the artificial intelligence industry, beginning this week in Texas and........

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