AI Firms Fund AGs Investigating Them: $2M+ in Donations

AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Amazon, have donated over $2 million to national political committees representing attorneys general since early 2025. This comes as these same attorneys general are investigating and suing AI companies over issues like harm to children and deceptive safety claims. More than half of this money arrived in the past few months. For example, Google, Meta, and Amazon each gave matching amounts to both Democratic and Republican Attorneys General Associations in the second quarter of 2026. Notably, Elon Musk’s xAI donated $25,000 to the Democratic AG group in May. This happened while xAI is both suing the California Attorney General and is under investigation by that same office for its Grok model generating sexually explicit deepfakes. State attorneys general have expressed "grave concerns" about children's interactions with AI chatbots and have demanded stronger safeguards. This situation highlights a complex dynamic between AI companies and the regulators overseeing them.