Good Monday morning. Here’s the day in tech, Decoded: — The main character: ‘Marshall Ancoates,’ revealing what voters actually think of the tech industry. — Why AI researchers aren’t playing political kingmaker — yet. — The affordability crisis that might not be fixable.

— The other Boldfaces: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Tom Brown, Reid Hoffman, Dustin Moskovitz, Cari Tuna, Chris Larsen, Lyna Lam, Ron Conway, Reed Hastings, David Baszucki, Alex Jacquez, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy and more.

THE BIG IDEA EXCLUSIVE: ON YOUR RIGHT — American voters across the political spectrum now assume most top tech CEOs are conservative, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. And a plurality of voters say they believe tech is the biggest financial backer of the Republican Party.

The survey, Decoded: The results, first revealed in Decoded, could complicate not only the prospects of Republicans trying to break from Donald Trump in the midterms or 2028 amid rising backlash to Big Tech and AI. They could also spell trouble for the companies themselves next year, when Democrats are expected to control at least the House.

The new poll, conducted by polling firm PF Global, looked at the biggest names in tech, from Elon Musk and Sam Altman to Dario Amodei, and marks a sea change in views of an industry long viewed as liberal, based in deep blue California. Within tech circles, the politics of these three warring CEOs are known to have diverged significantly.

Amodei has only donated to Democrats or largely Democrat-aligned PACs, while Altman has reserved his largest donations for Democrat-aligned PACs while giving to some Republicans. Musk, of course, has recently gone on one of the largest spending sprees for Republican causes in history.

But outside of the tech bubble, Americans who do have an opinion see them as mostly holding similar politics, in particular Altman and Amodei. And many Americans don’t have an opinion or don’t know who these CEOs are at all.

“Over the last few years, the image of Silicon Valley as a liberal industry has all but gone. Both Harris and Trump voters now see AI companies as Republican,” said Seb Wride, PF Global’s head of polling. “The risk for tech companies is that the parties turn them into a voting issue, and fix this perception for years to come.”Here’s what the numbers show: Musk was most likely to be viewed Republican; Bill Gates was an outlier Musk was the most likely to be viewed as Republican, with 59% of Americans identifying him as such, while only 14% think he’s a Democrat.

Musk gave at least $276 million to boost Republicans in the third quarter, according to FEC filings on Thursday, making him by far the largest spender of the cycle.

Bill Gates, meanwhile, was the only tech CEO out of eight on the survey who more Americans believe is a Democrat (35%) than a Republican (31%).

40% of Americans believe Mark Zuckerberg is a Republican while 27% think he’s a Democrat.

32% of Americans think Altman is Republican and 22% believe he’s a Democrat. 29% said they don’t know who he is.

Amodei — whose company has been more at odds with the White House — was less likely than Altman to be viewed as Republican at 28%, but that surpasses the 20% who thought he was a Democrat. 35% said they are unaware of who he is.

For most of these CEOs, both Democrats and Republicans were more likely to believe that they are Republicans. The exceptions were Gates and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who more Democrats believed was a Democrat. Even a fake tech CEO was pegged as Republican.

The POLITICO Poll tested the name of a fake tech CEO: “Marshall Ancoates.”Twenty-two percent of respondents said they believed “Ancoates” to be a Republican, while 18% thought he was a Democrat.

30% of Trump 2024 voters believe that “Ancoates” is a Republican, compared to 19% who believe he is a Democrat.

Harris 2024 voters were split — 24% believe him to be a Democrat, while 24% think he’s a Republican.

That finding is notable because it suggests that Americans are more likely to assume any tech CEO is a Republican rather than a Democrat. That’s true in particular of Trump voters.

Americans associate tech workers almost directly with their bosses. And employees at AI companies are thought to be more Republican than employees at more legacy tech outfits.

53% of Americans think Tesla employees are Republicans; 18% think they are Democrats.

At OpenAI, it’s 33% Republican, 26% Democrat.

At Anthropic, the numbers are close — 28% surveyed believed Anthropic employees leaned Republican, while 25% thought they leaned Democratic.

Employees at Microsoft, Apple and Google are very slightly associated more with Democrats — Google was the most associated with Democrats of the three companies, at 34% Democrat to 28% Republican.

Americans believe the tech industry is the biggest donor to Republican causes. Decoded asked respondents, out of 12 industries ranging from environment and climate to gun rights, which spent the most money in support of Republican candidates this year.

Pluralities of both Harris (38%) and Trump (26%) voters narrowly agreed that the AI and tech industry was the biggest spender for Republican causes. Americans believe that Democracy and voting rights groups donate the most to Democrats.

On today’s podcast: Calder and Christine decode the latest POLITICO Poll and what it means for the future of Silicon Valley and politics, plus discuss the big donors driving tech’s relationship with Washington.

CAMPAIGN CACHE ANALYSIS: NEW MONEY, OLD GUARD — AI researchers and other industry employees emerged as a powerful political bloc this year. But regardless of what poll respondents may assume about their affiliation, don’t expect them to be party kingmakers just yet.

Tech’s traditional megadonors are still the ones bankrolling the broader fight for control of Congress in the lead-up to the November midterms. (And as we told you Friday, the major players from the 2024 cycle are back in a big way.) It’s a sign that ahead of potential IPOs expected to swell their fortunes, employees of the AI industry are concentrating their election spending on rival issue-specific super PAC groups, select congressional races involving candidates with records on AI safety regulation and statewide contests where they feel they can exert greater influence.

Prominent AI firms like OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia did not appear among the top employers of individual donors to leading congressional super PACs, according to a Decoded analysis of federal campaign records for the most recent quarter.

— The exception was Anthropic, whose co-founder Tom Brown sent $250,000 late last month to the GOP’s primary Senate super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund. Brown has been Anthropic’s go-to fixer as the company tries to smooth over past disputes with the Trump administration and criticism of CEO Amodei from some officials.

He joined Amodei for Trump’s recent luncheon and AI safety accordg with industry executives, one day before making the donation. Brown and his wife have also shared in private conversations that they are allies of the Republican Party and looking to form political relationships. No other donors to SLF in Q3 reported Anthropic as their employer.

— The Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC’s tech contributions were from familiar Silicon Valley supporters.

They included $5 million from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; a combined $8 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna; a combined $4 million from Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam; $2 million from investor Ron Conway; and $1 million from Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings over the past three months.

Some have financial stakes in AI. Moskovitz was an early Anthropic investor and has funded AI safety causes alongside Larsen, while Conway is an OpenAI investor who advised CEO Sam Altman during his brief ouster from the company.

— Roblox CEO David Baszucki went halfsies, with $650,000 for SLF and SMP each. He pitched in $2.5 million for Trump’s ballroom project and has previously backed candidates of both parties.

— The Congressional Leadership Fund, which focuses on helping Republicans keep the House, showed no comparable contributions from employees at prominent AI firms in its Q3 filing. House Majority PAC, CLF’s Democratic counterpart, reports monthly, with its next update due Oct. 20. TECH IMPACTS AFFORDABILITY IN THE AI ERA — Americans were furious about their living costs before the AI boom.

Now, they’re contending with an expensive, powerful technology that may lead to transformational economic change. None of that bodes well for affordability politics. “People really crave stability. They do not like change. And prices going up and up and up and up — and feeling so far out of their control — has been a big factor” in depressing sentiment for the last several years, said Alex Jacquez, a former adviser to former President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who’s now a senior vice president of policy, advocacy and research at Groundwork Collaborative.

“The AI build-out in general is undoubtedly now pushing up prices.”In POLITICO Magazine, Sam reports on how affordability became an unsolvable problem for U.S. political leaders.

The public’s dour perception of the economy hasn’t jibed with data showing that consumers are spending more — and making more — than they were before the pandemic. By most measures, quality of life has improved.

Persistent inflation has robbed them of the belief that they can get ahead. And for now, the AI boom has stoked inflation, depressed wage growth and exacerbated shortages that are crimping the supply of new homes. There are fears among consumer advocates that the deployment of AI — through agentic commerce, or for data collection — could lead to more sticker shock.

“The accumulated information that they have on us to determine the prices we’re paying, is going to be a very real way that people interact with or view AI,” Jacquez said.

JOBS FOR HUMANS— Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, former Trump senior intelligence official and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter-in-law, is now a registered lobbyist for Anthropic. She’s a partner at the Trump-connected lobbying firm Ballard, which Anthropic hired this spring, days after the Pentagon designated the company a supply chain risk.

Worth Your Tabs— Anthropic makes pitch to the Hill (POLITICO): Our colleague Owen Dahlkamp scooped that the AI lab is floating a proposal to Congress that mirrors California’s landmark AI rules that the company also supported.

— Meta switches up its political strategy (The New York Times): This rarely happens outside of political scandals: Meta received $25 million back from political groups it had funded out of a $65 million total effort to elect state politicians friendly to the tech industry.

— Data centers are trying to win over the youth (WIRED): Companies and associated lobbying firms are producing pro-data center content — like children’s books — aimed at young people.

— America’s AI infrastructure boom is running into problems (The FT): Project delays and shaken investor confidence, brought on in part by public backlash, are starting to slow America’s data center build-out. Analysts at Bernstein estimated this month that just 35% of the planned U.S. data center pipeline are highly likely to be completed and brought online.

— A cyberattack on French supermarkets exposed weakness in the system (POLITICO): A recent cyberattack on refrigerators in French supermarkets forced hundreds of retailers to throw away potentially spoiled food — but according to experts was due to bad security practices rather than any advanced AI systems attack.

Have a tip, comment or feedback? Drop us a line, [email protected]. Stay in touch with the whole team: Brendan Bordelon, [email protected] or Signal: BrendanBordelon.82 Calder McHugh, [email protected] or Signal: cmchugh.12 Christine Mui, [email protected] or Signal: cmui.88 Sam Sutton, [email protected] or Signal: samjsutton.18 Decoded couldn’t happen without: Editors Emma Anderson, John Hewitt Jones and Christopher Cadelago.