{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-10-22T20:06:00+02:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-21-ai-labs-record-q3-lobbying-antitrust-information-sharing/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-21-ai-labs-record-q3-lobbying-antitrust-information-sharing/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-10-21-ai-labs-record-q3-lobbying-antitrust-information-sharing","date":"2026-10-21","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Record Q3 lobbying by Nvidia, Anthropic and OpenAI","deck":null,"takeaway":"Q3 2026 lobbying disclosures (filed Oct 20–21, 2026) show record federal lobbying spending by Nvidia (~$2.2M), Anthropic (~$2.1M) and OpenAI (~$1.5M), with Meta leading Big Tech at $5.9M.","category":"policy-safety","category_label":"Policy & safety","importance":3,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Crypto Briefing: Nvidia spends a record nearly $2.2 million on federal lobbying in Q3","url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/nvidia-record-federal-lobbying-q3/","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"cryptobriefing.com"},{"n":2,"title":"FourWeekMBA: Nvidia's Q3 lobbying jumped 72% to $2.15M, filings show","url":"https://fourweekmba.com/ai-nvidias-q3-lobbying-jumped-72-to-2-15m-filings-show/","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"fourweekmba.com"},{"n":3,"title":"Semafor: Meta tops Big Tech lobbying as AI labs talk antitrust","url":"https://www.semafor.com/article/10/21/2026/meta-tops-big-tech-lobbying-as-ai-labs-talk-antitrust","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"semafor.com"}],"official":0,"filed":"2026-10-22","updated":"2026-10-22","orgs":["Nvidia","Anthropic","OpenAI","Meta"],"title":"Nvidia, Anthropic and OpenAI post record quarterly federal lobbying; the labs lobby for antitrust cover to share threat information","summary":"Q3 2026 lobbying disclosures (filed Oct 20–21, 2026) show record federal lobbying spending by Nvidia (~$2.2M), Anthropic (~$2.1M) and OpenAI (~$1.5M), with Meta leading Big Tech at $5.9M. Both labs disclosed lobbying on letting AI companies share threat information without falling foul of antitrust law; Anthropic named the Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act.","key_facts":["Quarter: July–September 2026; LD-2 disclosures filed Oct 20, reported Oct 21–22 by Bloomberg, Bloomberg Law, Semafor and The Verge","Nvidia: nearly $2.2M, its largest disclosed quarter (Bloomberg); LD-2 data cited by FourWeekMBA gives $2.15M, up from $1.25M in Q2","Anthropic: $2.11M in Q3 (prior quarters $1.97M and $1.01M), about $5.6M year to date; OpenAI: $1.53M (prior $1.20M and $0.92M), nearly $3.8M year to date (Bloomberg Law). All three were company records","Meta led Big Tech with $5.9M in Q3 (Semafor)","Topic (Semafor): both OpenAI and Anthropic lobbied on information sharing between AI companies without violating antitrust rules; Anthropic's disclosure names the Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act, OpenAI's names no specific bill","The Verge's figures as summarised by Techmeme ($2.2M, $2.1M, $1.5M) match Bloomberg Law's to the rounding","Confidence: medium — The Verge, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Law and Semafor are all blocked or paywalled for us; the figures here come from search summaries of those reports and from FourWeekMBA's and Crypto Briefing's accounts of the LD-2 filings"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["lobbying","us-policy","antitrust","information-sharing","disclosures","midterms"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nThe quarterly lobbying disclosures put numbers on how hard the AI industry is now working Washington: three company records in one\nquarter, two weeks before the US midterms. The substantive detail is what the labs asked for — an antitrust safe harbour for sharing\ninformation about threats, the thing that has repeatedly come up after the year's agent-hacking incidents.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nThe amounts are small next to the super-PAC money already documented for the midterms, but the disclosed subject matter is a concrete\npolicy ask: labs want to be able to tell each other about attacks and dangerous capabilities without antitrust exposure.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-10-16-anthropic-draft-frontier-ai-safety-bill","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-10-16-anthropic-draft-frontier-ai-safety-bill/","date":"2026-10-16","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Politico: Anthropic quietly pitches lawmakers its own frontier AI safety bill, letting a D.C. judge halt a model only for imminent catastrophic risk","deck":null,"takeaway":"Anthropic is now offering Congress its own legislative text instead of only reacting to other bills.","category":"policy-safety","category_label":"Policy & safety","importance":4,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":12,"official":0,"filed":"2026-10-17","updated":"2026-10-21","orgs":["Anthropic","US Congress","US Department of Commerce"]},{"id":"2026-09-29-nyt-ai-super-pacs-55-7m-midterms","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-29-nyt-ai-super-pacs-55-7m-midterms/","date":"2026-09-29","date_precision":"day","short_title":"NYT: OpenAI- and Anthropic-aligned super PACs have spent $55.7M on the US midterms, and none of their 95 ads mention data centers","deck":null,"takeaway":"The two leading labs are fighting their policy battle (preemption and light rules versus safety rules) through proxy political spending.","category":"policy-safety","category_label":"Policy & safety","importance":3,"confidence":"medium","status":{"key":"partly","labels":["Partly confirmed"]},"sources":17,"official":0,"filed":"2026-09-30","updated":"2026-10-17","orgs":["OpenAI","Anthropic","Meta","Leading the Future","Public First Action"]},{"id":"2026-08-27-collective-cyber-defense-letter","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-27-collective-cyber-defense-letter/","date":"2026-08-27","date_precision":"day","short_title":"OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and 100+ organizations sign an open letter calling for a global surge in cyber defense","deck":null,"takeaway":"It was the first industry-wide statement after an AI agent had actually carried out a real intrusion.","category":"policy-safety","category_label":"Policy & safety","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":6,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["OpenAI","Anthropic","Google","Microsoft","Amazon","Oracle"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-10-22","type":"filed","text":"Created (blocked; figures from Bloomberg Law/Semafor summaries and the LD-2 reports)"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-10-22","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-10-22","human_review":null,"version":null},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":174,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":113,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-argon","name":"Gemini 4 Argon","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":204,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":143,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}