“Meet Facebook’s AI Lobbying Army: With 30 Lobbyists & 7 Agencies, the Company Is Primed to Push Its Agenda on Washington”, 2024-05-17 ():
Facebook is investing heavily in shaping US AI policy, with 30 well-connected lobbyists working across 7 firms, according to an analysis of the company’s AI-related lobbying disclosures for Q1 2024. The lobbyists include President Trump’s former deputy chief of staff and people with close ties to the lawmakers leading congressional AI efforts.
In total, Facebook spent $7,640,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of 2024, according to OpenSecrets and my own analysis of lobbying disclosures. Of that, $315,000 went to firms lobbying on AI on its behalf, and a substantial fraction of its $6,693,750 internal lobbying spending was likely focused on AI, too.
With plans to regulate AI continuing to progress in Congress and the White House, Facebook’s 30-strong army is likely pushing the company’s views—which push against many AI regulation efforts—to lawmakers.
Facebook’s substantial lobbying force is split between its 15 in-house lobbyists, and 15 external lobbyists working across 7 different firms (Avoq, Blue Mountain Strategies, Elevate Government Affairs, Jeffries Strategies, Mindset Advocacy, and Stewart Strategies and Solutions). Facebook spent a cumulative $315,000 with these agencies in Q1, led by an $80,000 contract with Avoq.
…Along with “continued conversations on artificial intelligence”, Facebook is specifically lobbying on bills relating to AI labeling, deceptive AI and Section 230 immunity for AI.
Notable lobbyists include Rick Dearborn, formerly the deputy chief of staff to President Trump and executive director of the 2017 Trump transition team and now a partner at Mindset. Others include Luke Albee, former chief of staff to Sen. Mark Warner; Courtney Temple, former legislative director for Sen. Thom Tillis; Daniel Kidera and Sonia Gill, both former aides to Sen. Chuck Schumer; and Chris Randle, former legislative director to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
…Facebook’s efforts substantially outgun most other attempts at AI lobbying and advocacy. OpenAI, which has 11 registered lobbyists, spent $340,000 in Q1; Anthropic spent $100,000 across 5 lobbyists. Alphabet, which owns Google DeepMind and spent a total of $3,650,000 on lobbying in Q1, had 23 registered AI lobbyists—though 8 of those worked purely on issues related to its self-driving car division, Waymo. Seemingly the only company with a bigger AI lobbying force is Microsoft, which has 68 lobbyists registered to work on AI. It spent $2,557,764 in Q1, of which $635,000 went to outside agencies working on AI.
Advocacy efforts pale in comparison. AI safety advocacy groups the Center for AI Safety and Center for AI Policy spent $110,000 and $77,501 respectively in Q1; combined, they have 10 registered lobbyists. The Mozilla Foundation, another non-profit advocating on AI, spent $30,000; the Electronic Frontier Foundation spent $10,000.
…Nevertheless, performing the same analysis for Q1 2023 shows how Facebook’s priorities are shifting: a year ago, Facebook didn’t have a single external lobbyist working on AI issues.