When Titans Fund the Lawmakers: The AI Regulation Gambit Echoing Industrial America
![empty formal interior, natural lighting through tall windows, wood paneling, institutional architecture, sense of history and permanence, marble columns, high ceilings, formal furniture, muted palette, an empty gavel made of dark walnut and silver, lying askew on a broad mahogany table scarred with faint burn marks and ink stains, sunlight streaming through tall arched windows behind it, illuminating dust motes above rows of vacant leather-upholstered chairs in a vast, silent state legislative chamber [Bria Fibo]](https://081x4rbriqin1aej.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/viral-images/084d03ad-f319-4a33-983c-94ea73430324_viral_2_square.png "empty formal interior, natural lighting through tall windows, wood paneling, institutional architecture, sense of history and permanence, marble columns, high ceilings, formal furniture, muted palette, an empty gavel made of dark walnut and silver, lying askew on a broad mahogany table scarred with faint burn marks and ink stains, sunlight streaming through tall arched windows behind it, illuminating dust motes above rows of vacant leather-upholstered chairs in a vast, silent state legislative chamber [Bria Fibo]")
When new technologies emerge, regulatory uncertainty has routinely invited actors to shape governance through political investment—just as railroads funded lawmakers to secure land grants, and telecom giants lobbied to dismantle barriers, today’s AI firms advance their frameworks by anchoring policy in electoral moments.
In 1890, as railroads crisscrossed America, they didn’t just lay tracks—they laid lawmakers, quietly funding candidates who would ensure federal land grants continued and antitrust scrutiny remained light; today, Anthropic isn’t just training models, it’s training the political system to regulate AI on its terms. [^1] Just as Jay Gould once said, “I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other,” modern tech leaders understand that the most efficient way to control the future is to fund the present’s political battles. [^2] In 1996, when the Telecommunications Act was being shaped, AT&T spent over $20 million (equivalent to ~$38 million today) lobbying Congress to dismantle regulatory barriers—precisely the kind of move Anthropic is now replicating at the state level. [^3] The irony? Then, it was about who controls the airwaves; now, it’s about who controls the algorithms that shape perception itself. And just as the railroad barons created monopolies under the guise of progress, today’s AI firms wrap their political spending in the language of “safety” and “transparency”—but the pattern is unmistakable: power consolidates not through force, but through timely donations at moments of regulatory uncertainty.
[^1]: White, Richard. *Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America*. W.W. Norton, 2011.
[^2]: Chernow, Ron. *Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.*. Random House, 1998.
[^3]: McChesney, Robert W. *Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times*. The New Press, 1999.
—Sir Edward Pemberton
Published February 21, 2026