Democrat Alex Bores running for Congress in New York’s 12th District
Ricardo @Ric_RTP Private content partner to finance & tech founders | $50M+ in value generated for 35+ clients | I like to share my honest thoughts, don’t take it personally.
OpenAI and Palantir are so terrified of this guy, they’re spending millions to destroy him.
There’s a Democrat running for Congress in New York’s 12th District named Alex Bores.
Never heard of him? Well that’s the point.
3 year state assemblyman. 30 bills passed. Co-author of the RAISE Act, the first real AI safety law in any major state.
Soft bill. Basic transparency. Safety plans. Incident reporting.
And for that, the AI industry has declared WAR on him.
A Super PAC called Leading the Future has already dumped $2.5 million into destroying his campaign.
Funded by Joe Lonsdale (Palantir co-founder), Greg Brockman (OpenAI co-founder), and Andreessen Horowitz.
They’ve said they may spend up to $10 million.
For a single House seat.
But the money isn’t the crazy part…
The crazy part is what they’ve said OUT LOUD about why:
They’re trying to make him SUFFER so publicly that every future politician who even THINKS about regulating AI runs the other way.
Bores’ exact words: “They want to beat up on me so bad that when the idea of regulating AI comes up in the future, politicians run the other way.”
This is literally political deterrence.
Terrorize one guy so brutally that Congress learns the lesson: Touch AI, end your career.
Now here’s where it gets really insane:
Their main attack line is that Bores worked at Palantir “building ICE tech.”
And who funds the attacks? Joe Lonsdale. Palantir co-founder.
The man who profits from ICE contracts is spending millions to attack a candidate for… once working at Palantir.
But Bores QUIT Palantir in 2019 because executives refused to put anti-deportation guardrails into their ICE contracts after Trump’s first election.
He pushed internally. They said no. He walked.
So the billionaire who funds deportation tech is spending millions to smear a candidate for working on deportation tech that the candidate actually tried to stop.
You cannot make this up.
And the question everyone should ask is: Why THIS guy?
Bores isn’t a radical. He’s not anti-AI. Not Bernie Sanders.
He’s a moderate Democrat with a CS degree who passed the softest possible AI bill.
Which is EXACTLY why Palantir and OpenAI are terrified of him.
Because he proved something dangerous:
You can actually pass AI regulation.
It’s not impossible. You just need one competent legislator who understands the tech and refuses to back down.
Multiply that by 50 states and AI companies lose control forever.
So they’re not just attacking Bores the candidate.
They’re attacking the PROOF that AI regulation is possible.
And they’re doing it while OpenAI quietly publishes policy documents that ADMIT most of Bores’ proposed regulations are reasonable.
Third-party audits? They agree.
Red-teaming? They agree.
Kid safety provisions? They agree.
They don’t disagree with the substance.
They disagree with the TIMING.
They want regulation to come AFTER they’ve bought enough political power to write it themselves.
That’s what $2.5 million to destroy one assemblyman actually buys.
Not an election.
But a warning to every politician watching:
If a first-term legislator with a soft bill can get buried under $10 million of attack ads, imagine what we’ll do to you if you try to pass a real one.
This is how industries capture democracy.
With FEAR.
And it’s working. Members of Congress are already telling Bores in private: “We’re watching this race. We want to see if this is an issue you can win on, or if money just swamps everything.”
Which basically means: Tell us if we’re allowed to legislate on this.
The crypto industry ran this exact playbook in 2024 through Fairshake. Hundreds of millions spent. Anti-crypto candidates destroyed. Congress rewritten.
Now AI is running it at 10x the scale.
Leading the Future: $125M raised. AI companies: $300M+ committed to the 2026 midterms.
More than crypto spent in the ENTIRE 2024 cycle.
All on one principle: Don’t debate your critics. Destroy them so publicly nobody else dares become one.
Palantir isn’t scared of losing a House seat. OpenAI isn’t scared of one guy’s bill.
They’re scared of PRECEDENT.
Because if Bores wins, the lesson Congress learns is that you CAN take on AI and survive.
And that’s the one lesson the industry can never afford them to learn.
What’s your take on this?