Silicon Valley’s Million-Dollar Campaign Against a Founder
▼ Summary
– Alex Bores is a Democratic New York Assembly member and former Palantir employee running for Congress in a crowded primary.
– He is a vocal advocate for AI regulation and cosponsored New York’s RAISE Act, a 2025 law requiring major AI firms to publish safety protocols.
– A super PAC called Leading the Future, funded by tech figures like OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale, is campaigning against Bores’ primary run.
– The super PAC opposes Bores’ regulatory approach, arguing it would hinder AI innovation and job growth in the U.S.
– In an interview, Bores explained that Palantir helps organizations integrate and structure their existing data to track changes and identify patterns.
Imagine a congressional candidate whose resume includes a computer science degree and a stint at Palantir. Now picture a super PAC, funded by that very company’s cofounder and other Silicon Valley power players, spending over a million dollars to defeat him. This is the reality for New York Assembly member Alex Bores, a Democrat whose push for rigorous AI regulation has made him a target in his party’s primary.
Bores, 35, entered politics after his career in big tech, winning a state assembly seat in 2022. His technical background, however, has not translated into an industry-friendly platform. He is a vocal supporter of strict AI safety protocols and co-sponsored New York’s RAISE Act, a 2025 law mandating that major AI firms publish and implement detailed safety plans for their models.
This legislative stance triggered a significant backlash. In late 2025, a super PAC named Leading the Future launched an aggressive campaign against his primary bid. The group is financed by prominent figures like OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, and the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. They have publicly criticized Bores’ approach as “ideological and politically motivated legislation” that threatens America’s competitive edge in AI innovation and jobs.
In a recent conversation, Bores reflected on the unique experience of being attacked by a PAC funded by his former industry. He also discussed the common gap in technical understanding among lawmakers tasked with regulating complex technologies.
When asked to demystify Palantir’s often-opaque work, Bores offered a clear explanation. He described the company’s core function as helping organizations leverage their existing data. This involves tracking data changes over time, speeding up integration, and applying an “ontology,” which is essentially a prescribed framework for how that data should be structured.
He illustrated this with a project from his time at the company, involving the Department of Justice after the Great Recession. The goal was to analyze whether major banks were aware that loans bundled into securities failed to meet quality standards. A key piece of evidence, Bores noted, would be a pattern where a problematic loan was removed from one security before issuance only to be placed into another with identical standards. Such a maneuver would strongly suggest the bank knew the loan was defective. This example highlights how data ontology can reveal critical patterns and insights within vast information systems.
(Source: Wired)
