David Sacks, a venture capitalist who has made much of his fortune investing in tech companies and currently serves as the Trump administration’s “Crypto and AI Czar,” is worried about regulatory capture. No, not his regulatory capture, that’s fine. He’s worried about Anthropic, one of the largest AI startups in the world, which he believes is cynically positioning itself as the pro-regulation company in order to push policies that it would benefit from while stifling others who want to get started in the AI sector.
In a post on his personal X account, Sacks, who is still technically a part of the Trump administration as a special government employee, warned, “Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.” According to Sacks, the startup is “principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”
Regulatory capture in the AI space is a real concern. Multi-billion-dollar companies regularly use their immense wealth to lobby for favorable policy. Tech companies successfully ran this playbook in the early 2020s, using lobbying efforts to get industry-approved digital privacy laws passed in state legislatures across the country. And there is no shortage of AI money flowing into lobbying right now. According to the Wall Street Journal, Silicon Valley firms have already poured more than $100 million into new Super PACs to push pro-AI messaging in the lead-up to midterm elections in 2026.
Anthropic is certainly spending some of its money on lobbying, as well. Politico found the startup spent $910,000 in lobbying efforts during the second quarter of 2025, nearly tripling its spending from the quarter prior. It’s also hired lobbying firm Continental Strategy to push its preferences in Washington, D.C. It’s far from alone in that, of course. OpenAI spent even more last year than Anthropic has this year and has continued its lobbying efforts through 2025.
But there’s not much evidence to suggest that Anthropic is single-handedly the cause of states adopting AI protections. The company did recently throw its support behind a recently signed AI safety bill in California after previously opposing a similar effort the year prior—but OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane also said that the company was “pleased” with the new law (though it was terrorizing some of the bill’s biggest advocates, so take that with a grain of salt) and Meta called it a step in the right direction.
Reportedly, there has been some tension between federal law enforcement agencies and Anthropic over the company’s restrictions on using its tools for surveillance purposes, but that hasn’t stopped Anthropic from readily working with the Trump administration. The company backed Trump’s AI Action Plan, and the White House used the company’s statement as evidence of support for the policies. Anthropic also joined the White House Pledge to America’s Youth, supporting AI investment in education. CEO Dario Amodei has appeared at a summit with Trump, and Trump shouted out the company while making remarks about AI in healthcare. So it’s not like there is a lot of tension between the administration and Anthropic, generally.
Gizmodo contacted Anthropic about Sacks’ comments, but the company did not offer an on-the-record response. Anthropic Co-Founder and Head of Policy Jack Clark did respond to Sacks on X, stating, “It’s through working with the startup ecosystem that we’ve updated our views on regulation – and of importance for a federal standard,” and said the company would “love” to work with the administration on regulatory matters and “supporting a new generation of startups leveraging AI.”
Sacks’ comments about regulatory capture should ring entirely hollow, not because Anthropic and other AI firms wouldn’t love to be the beneficiaries of such things, but because Sacks sure seems to be an active beneficiary of exactly that. Not only is he a Peter Thiel acolyte, but, along with Elon Musk, he’s a member of the “PayPal Mafia,” who successfully weaseled their way into the federal government. Since taking office, the Trump administration has happily handed out contracts to Thiel firms like Palantir.
While Sacks and his venture capital firm Craft Ventures have claimed they divested large chunks of their investments in AI and crypto, it hasn’t stopped questions from being raised about his position. In July, an AI startup called Vultron, which creates AI tools specifically for federal contractors, secured a $22 million funding round from Craft Ventures. In the press release announcing the funding, it made sure to mention Craft was “co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks.”
Last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Sacks asking if he had exceeded his 130-day limit as a special government employee. Sacks has reportedly been splitting his time between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., so it’s conceivable that he hasn’t technically hit his cap for service. Surely he’s not bringing information back and forth between those roles that influence his work on either side, though… right?