Anthropic is launching a ‘presidential engagement’ effort to advise candidates on AI policy ahead of the 2028 election

Anthropic is setting up a “presidential engagement” program ahead of the 2028 elections, building an in-house team that will work directly with U.S. presidential candidates from both parties on AI issues, help Anthropic’s leadership set political strategy, and run the company’s political funding program.

The effort—which is taking shape before the November midterm elections and an impending initial public offering that could value Anthropic at as much as $2 trillion—underscores the extent to which government policy, and the support of the White House in particular, have become critical to the AI industry.

Anthropic is hiring a Political Programs lead to spearhead the effort and build the team.

The person will “build and run Anthropic’s presidential engagement program for the 2028 cycle,” according to the job description that the company posted recently.

The person in the role will “map the prospective fields in both parties, offer AI policy education to candidates and their advisors on equal terms, prepare Anthropic’s executives for those conversations, and plan ahead for the platform, convention, and transition periods.” “Decisions made over the next two years will shape the future enormously,” reads the job description.

“We want every serious candidate and elected official, in both parties, to understand the technology and the case for governing it well.” Tech companies lobbying the government is established practice—and OpenAI is similarly hiring a U.S.

Congressional Lead to advance its legislative priorities—but Anthropic’s plan to create a dedicated in-house program to engage with presidential candidates struck some experts as unusual.

“Companies have relationships with presidential campaigns through their government affairs people.

Corporate people can be involved on the fundraising side and on the policy side,” said Bruce F.

Freed, the president of the non-partisan Center for Political Accountability.

“But I’ve not seen such as formalized engagement through a presidential election engagement committee.

My reading is this is an AI company effort aimed at shaping or staving off government regulation or oversight.” Anthropic did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration has been particularly rocky.

In March, the Department of Defense designated Anthropic as a “supply chain risk” after the company clashed with the Pentagon over the ways its technology could be used by the military.