The Largest Pro-AI Super PAC Network Has Brought Millions of People Into Nevada Shell Companies

Backed by Silicon Valley giants, Leading the Future has raised huge sums to promote pro-AI candidates on both sides of the aisle.

The problem is that the company — Lantern Production Consultants LLC — doesn't seem to exist anywhere beyond a mailbox in the Springs business complex.

According to federal campaign finance records reviewed by WIRED, Lantern Production Consultants has been paid about $20 million since last year by Think Big, part of a network of pro-AI super PACs funded by Leading the Future PAC, for a wide range of services, including polling, digital advertising, research and strategy. Backed by major AI investors, Leading the Future has taken a lead role in supporting candidates who support what it calls an "AI Innovation Policy Agenda."

It's just one of four mysterious Nevada-based LLCs that have received payments from super PACs in the Future Leading PAC network, including Think Big and American Mission. The network, also based in Nevada, has raised more than $140 million to influence political campaigns that align with the AI ​​industry's midterm priorities.

Summit Ridge Media Group LLC, which received about $13 million from American Mission between December 2025 and September 2026, lists an address at a mail center in a Reno mall. Blue Horizon Compliance Consultants, which also appears in the filings, listed its address as a Staples location in Reno. And Prusik Partners LLC's listed address is in a strip mall in Henderson, Nevada, where it shares a building with a chiropractor and a beauty salon.

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Election watchers argue that these LLCs are shell companies designed to hide the identities of the strategists, consultants and production companies working with Leading the Future. "It's about hiding where the money is going," asserts Shana Ports, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center.

In May, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC, which enforces campaign finance laws, alleging that Think Big and American Mission violated federal law by using shell companies in this way. Specifically, attorneys for the Campaign Law Center alleged that super PACs in the Future Progressive Network violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by failing to disclose the actual recipients of their payments. The LLCs "serve as extensions of the super PACs they serve," they wrote in their complaint.

"We comply with all applicable laws and this is simply a desperate ploy to get attention from Public First, Anthropic and groups aligned with our outside organizations to get our message to resonate with the public and policymakers," Jesse Hunt, spokesperson for Leading the Future, wrote in an emailed statement to WIRED.

WIRED reached out to Anthropic and Public First — a pro-AI super PAC focused on transparency and safeguards that enjoys significant support from Anthropic's leadership — to ask about future leadership responsibility. "We unequivocally had nothing to do with this lawsuit," said Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez, a spokesman for Public First. Anthropic did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.

The Campaign Legal Center doesn't expect its case to be heard by the FEC anytime soon, as the FEC is essentially toothless right now. The FEC has six commissioner seats, all of which are presidential appointees. To decide a lawsuit, the FEC needs a quorum of four commissioners, which it hasn't had since May 2025. Meanwhile, Think Big and American Mission have continued to pour millions of dollars into Nevada LLCs.

Future Leadership has attracted a lot of public attention, not just because it has the most cash among pro-AI groups—thanks to Silicon Valley investors like billionaire Marc Anderson, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI chief Greg Brockman—but also because it funnels money to super PACs that support both Republicans and Democrats. Think Big donates primarily to Democrats, and American Mission donates to Republicans.

The fact that the Leading the Future network plays both sides of the aisle, supporting AI-friendly Democrats and Republicans, has prompted speculation from experts as to why it spends so much on protective vendors. Typically, political strategists and consultants cater to Democrats or Republicans, not both. "If you're running in the Democratic primary and you're thinking big, they're going to spend on your campaign, and they're going to spend half of it," says Kyle Morse, executive vice director of the Technology Watch Project, a nonprofit advocacy group critical of big tech.

There are many reasons why a super PAC might want to hide its vendors, from the benign to the nefarious. In this instance, businesses may not want to be publicly associated with a pro-AI campaign. But since the FEC doesn't have a quorum for the foreseeable future, Morse says, "we're fundamentally ill-equipped to figure out what's going on here."

Leading the Future is not the only PAC accused of protecting sellers using shell companies. Earlier this year, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC against pro-gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera, who is running for Congress in Texas' 23rd District, alleging that more than 99 percent of his campaign payments went through the Texas Strategy Group, which the complaint said was "used as a woman." When reached for comment, Herrera's campaign directed WIRED to conservative figure Matt Brainard, who runs the Texas Strategy Group. Brainard vehemently denied the Campaign Legal Center's allegations, calling the lawsuit "meritless" and "little more than recycled legal theory from a partisan advocacy group."

The Campaign Legal Center also filed a complaint with the FEC against Lead Left PAC, a pop-up super PAC funded by Republicans while posing as a Democratic entity for the purpose of interfering in the Democratic primaries. The Campaign Legal Center accused it of paying shell companies to avoid communications with Republican strategists.

Port says this reflects a troubling trend in campaign financing at a time when dark money already dominates politics. "There's no way to trace the source behind the money, and that's bad enough in itself," says Ports. "Now there's this new component, where groups are playing to hide where the money is being spent. As a result, voters really lack basic information about where the money is coming from and where it's going."