Millions of dollars from a network backing AI-friendly political candidates have gone to Nevada companies with addresses at a post office box, a mail center and a Staples location. Campaign finance records reviewed by WIRED show the payments, while election watchdogs say the companies may make it harder to see which consultants and vendors ultimately received the money.
Payments lead to Nevada addresses
Lantern Production Consultants LLC, listed at a post office box in the Spanish Springs shopping complex in Sparks, has received around $20 million since last year from Think Big. The super PAC paid for services described in federal campaign finance records as polling, digital advertising, research and strategy.
Think Big belongs to a network funded by Leading the Future, a pro-AI political group backed by major AI investors. The network has raised over $140 million to influence midterm campaigns that align with AI-industry priorities. Leading the Future describes its goals as supporting “an AI innovation policy agenda.”
Three other Nevada LLCs also appear among the network’s recipients. Summit Ridge Media Group LLC received around $13 million between December 2025 and September 2026 from American Mission and lists an address at a mail center in a Reno strip mall. Blue Horizon Compliance Consultants lists a Staples location in Reno, while Prusik Partners LLC lists a strip mall in Henderson, in a building with a chiropractor and a beauty salon.
Watchdog complaint challenges disclosure
The Campaign Legal Center argues that the LLCs are shell companies that obscure the identities of the strategists, consultants and production companies doing work for Leading the Future. In May, the organization filed a complaint with the FEC, alleging that Think Big and American Mission violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by failing to identify the actual recipients of payments.
The complaint says the LLCs “function as mere extensions of the super PACs they serve.” Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said, “This is about hiding where the money is going.” The allegations remain allegations; the source does not report an FEC finding that the PACs broke the law.
Leading the Future spokesperson Jesse Hunt rejected the criticism in a statement to WIRED: “We comply with all applicable laws and this is merely a desperate ploy for attention from Public First, Anthropic, and the groups aligned with their outside organizations who see our message resonating with the public and policymakers.”
Public First, a pro-AI super PAC focused on transparency and safeguards and backed significantly by Anthropic leadership, denied involvement in the complaint. Spokesperson Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez said, “I have no idea what they’re talking about,” and added, “We unequivocally had nothing to do with this complaint.” Anthropic did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
A missing quorum leaves complaints in limbo
The Campaign Legal Center does not expect the complaint to be heard soon. The FEC has six commissioner seats, all presidential appointees, and needs four commissioners for a quorum to decide a legal complaint. It has lacked that quorum since May 2025.
That gap means allegations about the Nevada payments remain unresolved while Think Big and American Mission continue sending millions to the companies. Kyle Morse, deputy executive director of Tech Oversight Project, said, “We are not fundamentally equipped to figure out what’s happening here.”
Why the network uses vendors with these addresses is uncertain. The source notes that businesses might avoid public association with a pro-AI campaign, while watchdogs and critics raise concerns about concealment. Without public clarity on which firms did the work, voters have less information about how political spending is used.
Cross-party spending raises further questions
Leading the Future supports candidates from both major parties. Think Big overwhelmingly funds Democrats, while American Mission funds Republicans. That cross-party strategy has prompted questions about whether vendors or strategists could be working across partisan lines while their roles remain hidden.
Morse described why that could matter in a contested race: “If you’re running in a Democrat primary and Think Big comes to spend in your race, and they drop half a million on your congressional district doing positive ads while using Republican vendors and strategists—that’s news.” The possibility is presented as speculation, not as a finding about these companies’ actual political affiliations.
The complaint is part of a broader set of disputes over political spending routed through companies. Campaign Legal Center has also filed complaints involving Texas Strategy Group, accused of receiving more than 99 percent of Brandon Herrera’s campaign disbursements, and Lead Left PAC, accused of paying shell companies to avoid links to Republican strategists. Those cases also involve allegations, not established findings in the source.
For Ports, the central concern is the information voters can access about campaign money. “There’s no way of tracing the source behind the money, and that’s bad enough on its own,” she said. “Now there’s this new component, where groups are playing games to hide where the money is being spent. As a result, voters really lack fundamental information about where the money is coming from and where it’s going.”