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AI industry money tops $800,000 for Mike Rounds in a race he already leads
Most of the money reached the South Dakota senator as outside spending from Defend American Jobs, a group funded by a super PAC financed by Andreessen Horowitz, in a state whose legislature has already made hyperscalers pay more for water and power.
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What happened
- Wired reports that super PACs tied to AI labs and investors have put close to one million dollars into Republican Mike Rounds's South Dakota Senate race, a race it describes as noncompetitive.
- About $600,000 of that came from outside groups, with the vast majority from Defend American Jobs, which is funded by a super PAC financed by Andreessen Horowitz.
- FEC filings show roughly $215,000 more arriving directly from employees and super PACs affiliated with AI labs, most notably Anthropic, plus other tech firms including Google and Microsoft.
- Leading the Future, funded in part by OpenAI president Greg Brockman and investors Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, said on Thursday it would put $2 million behind Senate Republicans friendly to AI or crypto, Rounds among them.
- With fewer than 50 days to the November midterms, polls show Rounds ahead of independent Brian Beng after Democrat Julian Beaudion dropped out last month.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint A friendly senator cannot restore a state equipment tax break, so this spending does nothing for the projects South Dakota legislators priced out of the state.
- contradiction The industry's chosen ally has already endorsed restrictions on data centers at home. That undercuts the reading of this money as buying a settled policy position.
- exposure A senator's senior aide registered to lobby for Meta before the same state legislature hands opponents of local projects a conflict argument to use at siting hearings, whatever the ethics committee concluded.
- cost Opposition running at seven in ten Americans is what a siting team pays for in delay and local concessions, and a Senate campaign contribution leaves those costs exactly where they are.
The outside spending and the direct giving add to roughly $815,000, with outside money running about 2.8 times the money that came in directly [1][2]. Wired reports that Rounds has raised more this cycle from tech groups than from donors in South Dakota [6].
The decisions that actually changed the cost of building a data center in South Dakota this year were made in the state legislature, where a US senator has no vote. It passed a bill forcing hyperscalers to bear a larger share of the water and energy costs of powering data centers [8]. It also voted down tax breaks on the equipment and software purchases data centers require, and construction of a planned Applied Digital development stalled [9].
Rounds himself ultimately endorsed adding restrictions on data centers [10]. AI executives nonetheless regard him as a top supporter of the industry, and congressional aides familiar with the matter told Wired that his support could prove crucial in the next Congress, where AI regulation is expected to become a top priority [5], though the account never names the bill the money is aimed at.
There is a second channel into the same state. Rounds's senior aide and former chief of staff, Robert Skjonsberg, is a registered lobbyist for Meta on matters before the South Dakota legislature [11]. Meta runs a network of data centers and does not currently have one in South Dakota [15]. Rounds's office told Politico that its general counsel consulted the Senate ethics committee about the arrangement and was told there was no conflict of interest [12]. A spokesperson for Rounds did not respond to Wired's request for comment [13].
What the money buys is standing with a member who is very likely to be seated, in a chamber that has not yet written the bill, on a subject where that member's most recent recorded position went against his donors' preference. A lab's government affairs team can reasonably buy that, and it is of no use to the person who has to get a site approved next quarter.
Two questions decide whether a number like this matters to a siting plan: which body writes the rule, and whether campaign money reaches that body. In South Dakota, the body that set the water and energy split has already acted twice this year, and both times it moved against the industry paying for the Senate race [8][9].
What to watch
- Whether Leading the Future breaks out how much of its $2 million announcement goes to Rounds rather than the rest of the list.
- Whether the next Congress produces an actual bill on state AI or data center rules, and how Rounds votes on it.
- Whether Applied Digital revives its stalled South Dakota development after the tax break vote.