Mike Rounds Data Centers & AIBillionaires & Big Business South Dakota

Mike Rounds is writing the Senate's AI rules while Big Tech pays him

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South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds is writing the Senate's rules on artificial intelligence while taking handouts from the Big Tech companies he's supposed to be regulating. AI labs, Silicon Valley investors and tech giants like Google and Microsoft have poured over $815,000 into his reelection, and his own senior Senate adviser is an active lobbyist for Meta, paid by taxpayers and Big Tech at the same time. Tech billionaires are buying their top ally in Congress so they can take our jobs and spike our electric bills with no rules stopping them.

Read the full story: Mike Rounds Helps Write the Senate's AI Rules. AI Money Has Now Put About $815,000 Into His Reelection Race.

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Mike Rounds Helps Write the Senate's AI Rules. AI Money Has Now Put About $815,000 Into His Reelection Race.

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Wired found outside groups — mostly a super PAC funded through Andreessen Horowitz — have spent about $600,000 backing Mike Rounds, and he's taken roughly $215,000 more straight from employees and PACs of AI labs and other tech companies. Rounds co-wrote the Senate's AI roadmap, and AI executives see him as 'a top supporter of the industry.'

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Robert Skjonsberg has worked for Rounds for over a decade and is a registered South Dakota lobbyist for more than a dozen clients, among them Meta and Altria. Senate rules say a staffer at his pay grade may not affiliate with a firm that sells professional services — and he is listed as a co-owner of one.

Corruption & EthicsBillionaires & Big BusinessData Centers & AI South Dakota