Economic power routinely becomes political power in Washington, and this week offered an especially ugly demonstration. Tech executives gathered for lunch with Donald Trump, producing an entirely voluntary AI safety agreement that amounted to self regulation.

Public Citizen tallied money that the executives, their families, or their companies gave to Trump’s campaign, MAGA Inc., his inauguration fund, legal settlements that enriched him, and projects such as the White House ballroom. The tally put Elon Musk at $105 million, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai at $23 million each, and Jensen Huang at $1 million.

Meta’s Zuckerberg substantially designed the “morally binding” compact for policing AI models, with Nvidia’s Huang as a key lieutenant. Zuckerberg and Huang sat on one side of Trump, while Tesla and SpaceX’s Musk and Google’s Pichai sat on the other.

The document commits solely to internal processes and controls, leaving no role for government or the public. OpenAI employees had warned company leaders about inadequate monitoring of new models and a heightened risk of models going rogue, but executives ignored them, pushed for quick releases, and added no protocols.

Researchers who shared information with outside safety organizations were fired, even though the compact says such groups should help assess models. That record makes the industry’s promised internal policing look especially hollow.

Yet the relationship between money and politics can run in reverse when waning political power weakens economic power. Greg Brockman, president of OpenAI, attended the Trump lunch, though he sat farther from the president, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sat farther away still.

Brockman and his wife gave $25 million to MAGA Inc. at the beginning of the year, while he also funded Leading the Future, a super PAC focused on AI. The operators behind it also ran the crypto industry PAC Fairshake and aimed to spend heavily in primaries to secure a Congress resistant to AI mandates.

Brockman gave Leading the Future $25 million last year and was preparing another $25 million this year, but public backlash intervened. One Democratic candidate summarized the industry’s pitch this way: “We’re going to take all of your natural resources; if it works, everyone will lose their jobs, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll destroy all of humanity. Sound good?”

“No,” the American public replied, resoundingly. The New York Times reported that Brockman dropped the additional $25 million contribution, a decision made in June and not necessarily related to recent revelations about OpenAI’s serial hacking.

The timing suggests the industry had known for months that its reputation obstructed efforts to turn wealth into political influence. Brockman complained in internal messages that Leading the Future had “become so much of a distraction for people here.”

Leading the Future had $43 million in cash as of June 30, yet had done relatively little general election spending. Federal Election Commission filings showed its affiliated super PACs, American Mission for Republicans and Think Big for Democrats, spent $2.63 million on general election candidates since Labor Day.

Only one supported Democrat, Rep. Emilia Sykes of Ohio, was in a tight race, while Republican recipients were senators in potentially competitive contests outside the main battlegrounds. Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, received about $1 million in support as his senior staffer worked a second job as a lobbyist for Meta.

The vision of Leading the Future dominating elections is fading because its money can hurt candidates more than help them. Shaunna Thomas of Guardrails Alliance said Democrats should recognize the corporate AI super PAC as a liability and oppose an effort by Trump donors and AI billionaires to control elections.

Candidates are also attacking AI in advertisements, including numerous spots about data centers as both parties tap populist anger toward the facilities. Another target is surveillance pricing, the use of AI and personal data to set individualized maximum prices across the economy.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, North Carolina Senate Democratic candidate Roy Cooper, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are running ads against companies using AI to personalize grocery prices. Moore says Maryland “passed the first law in the nation to ban it,” but the Prospect argues lobbyists left that law full of holes.

Although Democratic consultants have warned candidates to sidestep AI, many have not listened, particularly amid hacking incidents and negative publicity. The industry’s damaged standing could mute its raw power in coming fights over regulation and enforcement, creating an opportunity for Americans to shape the policy they want.