The AI industry's fight over Washington's attention has a new front. Anthropic is building a formal "presidential engagement" program to work directly with both parties' 2028 presidential candidates on AI policy — a dedicated in-house political operation that experts say they have never quite seen from a technology company.
The company is hiring a Political Programs lead to "build and run Anthropic's presidential engagement program for the 2028 cycle," according to the job description first reported by Fortune. The role pays $295,000 to $345,000 a year, requires more than 12 years of experience in campaigns, party committees, or political organizations, and demands a track record of bipartisan collaboration. The hire will map the prospective candidate fields in both parties, offer AI policy education to candidates and their advisers "on equal terms," prepare Anthropic executives for political conversations, and plan ahead for the platform, convention, and transition periods.
The portfolio goes well beyond education. The job description also calls for running the day-to-day operations of Anthropic's political giving, including its political action committee, AnthroPAC, which was established in April and lets employees contribute up to the legal cap of $5,000 a year.
That combination drew scrutiny. Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director who now runs the advisory firm Anchor Change, said the role itself resembles her old job — but folding the company's political funding into the same portfolio is less common. Senator Alex Padilla said the hiring signals that leading AI companies are building political operations alongside their products, and cautioned that "education and influence are not the same," urging Anthropic to disclose more details.
The timing is notable. The program is taking shape just before the November midterm elections and ahead of a possible initial public offering that could value Anthropic at as much as $2 trillion. It also follows a combative stretch with the White House: in March, the Defense Department labeled Anthropic a "supply chain risk" after the company refused to let the Pentagon use its technology for fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans, and Anthropic sued over the designation.
Anthropic is not alone in its Washington hiring. OpenAI is also hiring a U.S. Congressional Lead to advance its legislative priorities. But a formal, dedicated operation aimed squarely at presidential campaigns would be a first for the industry — and a sign that the companies building frontier AI now consider the next administration as strategically important as the next model.