The biggest midterm donor (so far) is not a person

It’s a venture capital firm. Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest VCs in the world, and its billionaire founders have dumped $115.5 million into this year’s midterm election cycle, surpassing the contributions of individual billionaire donors including Elon Musk and George Soros, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to the NYT’s analysis, since Election Day 2024:

• Andreessen Horowitz has given $47.5 million to Fairshake, a super PAC network that supports crypto-friendly candidates on both sides of the aisle.
• The firm has also donated $50 million to Leading the Future, another super PAC that similarly backs AI-friendly Democrats or Republicans.
• Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and their eponymous firm have collectively given $12 million to President Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. That includes $6 million in March—around the time that Andreessen was appointed to a White House tech council.

Why this matters: Individual venture capitalists have pretty much always whipped out their checkbooks during election cycles, but firms themselves typically stayed out of political fundraising. The tides changed in late 2023, when Andreessen and Horowitz said their firm would start backing politicians who were committed to “advancing technology.”

Elsewhere in Silicon Valley…AI lobbying is also heating up. Meta, Nvidia, and Alphabet collectively spent nearly $50 million to sway federal lawmakers last year, up 22% from 2024.—ML