The cryptocurrency and AI industries raised $250 million in the past year for the U.S. midterm elections.

Mars Finance reports that on April 16, according to the UK’s Financial Times, an analysis of campaign finance records shows that the cryptocurrency and AI sectors have collectively raised about $250 million over the past year to support congressional candidates in the U.S. midterm elections in this year’s November. A16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz jointly donated $25 million in February this year to the Super PAC “Leading The Future,” a super political action committee supporting AI-friendly candidates. The organization has raised a total of about $75 million from billionaires, including the two individuals mentioned above and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman; if the figure also includes “dark money” non-profit organizations that do not disclose donors, the number rises to $140 million. The largest Super PAC in the crypto industry, Fairshake, has separately raised more than $134 million.

In January this year, Cantor Fitzgerald—an investment firm on Wall Street that was previously led by the current U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is now managed by his son Brandon, and has a cooperation relationship with Tether—donated $10 million to the pro-crypto Super PAC Fellowship. The parent company of major crypto platforms, Anchor Labs, also added an additional $1 million to the Fellowship PAC. In March this year, Elon Musk donated $1.6 million to his America PAC, with participation significantly reduced compared with 2024—he invested more than $250 million in total across various PACs in 2024. Anthropic pledged to contribute $20 million to the non-profit organization Public First Action, which has already redirected part of the funds to a Super PAC to influence the 2026 elections. The company holds a relatively unique position in the industry: it has clearly called for the establishment of strict federal AI safety rules, diverging from most participants in the AI industry.