Silicon Valley-based AI safety “doomers” have waded into Minnesota’s US Senate race with thousands of dollars’ worth of donations to Democrat Peggy Flanagan – a Sen. Bernie Sanders-backed candidate who has called AI an “existential threat” to humanity, The Post has learned.
Flanagan, the current lieutenant governor of Minnesota, is facing off against Republican challenger Michelle Tafoya for retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith’s seat. The race, currently rated as a toss-up by RealClearPolitics, is poised to help determine which party wins a razor-thin majority in the Senate – at a time when lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are wrestling over how the AI industry should be regulated.
The far-left Flanagan, who is endorsed by AI doomsayers like Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusets, received at least $41,000 in donations from 12 individuals who work in the AI industry between July 13 and Aug. 12, according to campaign finance records reviewed by The Post.
Local GOP officials allege that a win for Flanagan – who said in an interview last month that she was “concerned about the catastrophic nature of AI” – would add another voice in the Senate that would try to hamstring AI development with burdensome regulations. Her ally Sanders, for example, has called for a government-ordered pause of advanced AI development.
“Peggy Flanagan is a socialist doomer who wants to kill innovation and give China the upper hand by pushing effective altruism dogma and fighting alongside the likes of Bernie Sanders to unleash crippling government regulations on artificial intelligence,” said Nick Puglia, regional press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
On the campaign trail, Flanagan has taken a critical stance toward tech.
She made headlines over the summer for accusing a super PAC supporting her centrist primary opponent Angie Craig of “using an AI deepfake of me to mislead voters.”
Flanagan said in an interview last month that she was “concerned about the catastrophic nature of AI,” contending it was “moving much faster than the speed of government” – a clear nod toward strict regulation.
She called AI an “existential threat to us if it gets out of control” during a July primary debate. That same month, she held campaign rallies alongside Sanders in Minneapolis and Warren in Saint Paul.
Flanagan’s website touts endorsements from Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley of Minnesota, along with Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington – prominent members of the Democratic Party’s progressive “Squad.”
A Flanagan campaign spokesperson said it’s “past time for Washington to take action on AI.”
The candidate “believes Congress needs to act now to establish mandatory independent safety testing, real enforcement authority for regulators, and legal accountability when these systems cause harm – product liability exists for everywhere else and should here, too,” the spokesperson said.
“Until then, she believes we should seriously consider a pause on further advanced AI development, without it the consequences could have catastrophic implications.”
Doomer cash
Meanwhile, of the 12 AI workers who donated to Flanagan’s campaign, eight work at Anthropic, which has drawn criticism from both AI industry leaders and the Trump administration over CEO Dario Amodei’s frequent warnings about a potential AI doomsday.
Donors included William Saunders – a former OpenAI employee who told a Senate panel in 2024 that he quit “because I lost faith that, by themselves, [the company] will make responsible decisions about AGI.”
Another donor was Jan Leike, the ex-head of OpenAI’s so-called “Super Alignment” team, who quit in May 2024 while warning that safety had “taken a backseat to shiny products.”
The cluster of donations is the latest sign that safety-obsessed AI researchers at frontier labs – who stand to earn millions when companies like Anthropic and OpenAI go public – will soon have vast resources to influence the debate on how to regulate AI, according to one GOP strategist.
“It’s a reflection of how the doomer community is starting to activate and organize in politics – beyond just the executives distributing money to super PACs,” said the GOP strategist, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity.
“They’re going to become incredibly wealthy after these IPO pops. The rank-and-file frontier lab researcher is not the rank-and-file union worker in the rust belt of America.”
On July 23, Anthropic staffers Steven Bills and Daniel Ziegler donated a combined $14,000 to Flanagan’s campaign.
A day later, Anthropic technical staff member Evan Hubinger donated $4,500. Hubinger made waves on Sept. 8 for voicing support of whistleblower Jacob Coxon, who went viral after accusing Anthropic and OpenAI of “gambling with our lives” by building advanced AI.
“Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Hubinger wrote on X. “I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”
Saunders, who joined Anthropic’s AI alignment team in 2025, made a maximum donation of $3,500 to Flanagan’s campaign on July 30. That same day, two other Anthropic employees, Adly Templeton and Tao Lin, also gave $3,500. Lin has claimed that AI has a 20% of causing human extinction.
Leike, also now an Anthropic staffer, maxed out with $3,500 on Aug. 6. That same day, Anthropic recruiting analytics staffer Eliza Geeslin gave $50.
Outside of Anthropic, Jibran Jahshan, a vice president of software engineer at Nvidia, gave $1,000 to the Flanagan campaign on July 13. Jahshan has also donated extensively to lefty Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who supports Sanders’ proposal to ban artificial superintelligence from being developed and has also endorsed Flanagan.
Dylan Mavrides, a quantitative data analyst at Jane Street, a trading firm known for its informal ties to the cult-like Effective Altruism movement and disgraced crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried, donated $3,500 on July 30.
Mavrides and Anthropic’s Ziegler also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars total to the Dream NYC Super PAC, which spent heavily to support Manhattan Assemblyman Alex Bores in his failed congressional run. Bores ran on a promise to pursue heavy regulations on AI companies.
Kate Woolverton, a software engineer at Google, donated $4,500 to Flanagan on July 23. She previously gave a jaw-dropping $250,000 to the Anthropic-backed, pro-AI regulation super PAC Public First Action.
Woolverton was also one of many Google and OpenAI employees who signed an amicus brief last March backing Anthropic after the Trump administration labeled the company a supply chain risk.
Adam Breon, a software engineer at Fiddler AI, gave $50 to Flanagan’s campaign on Aug. 12.
Several of the Flanagan donors, including Ziegler, Bills, Hubinger, Templeton and Leike, signed an open letter addressed to California Gov. Gavin Newsom warning of “extreme AI risks.”
The 2024 letter urged Newsom to support California Senate Bill 1047, which drew support from key figures and groups associated with the Effective Altruism movement including the Center for AI Policy. Newsom ultimately vetoed the bill.