A review of campaign finance records by the Boston Globe revealed the spending. Most of it, $63,428 total, came from ten employees on a single day, August 12. Many of those donors gave identical amounts to the same candidates on the same dates.
What’s Actually in the Bill
The donations coincide with ongoing negotiations on Beacon Hill for a sweeping economic development package. Buried inside it are provisions for regulating AI companies, including a push for independent safety evaluations on larger firms. State Senator Mike Rush introduced the amendment requiring those evaluations.
Anthropic backed Rush’s amendment and pushed for the tighter measures. OpenAI took the opposite approach, lobbying to align the Senate’s plan with existing, looser laws already on the books in states like California. Both companies hired local lobbyists to work the bill, and both publicly supported the broader idea of AI guardrails while fighting over how strict those guardrails should actually be.
Who Got the Checks
The donations landed with legislators who hold real influence over the bill’s fate.
- Senate President Karen Spilka: almost $10,000
- House Speaker Ron Mariano: almost $10,000
- Senator Barry Finegold, a key negotiator on the economic bill: nearly $10,000
- House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz: almost $9,000
- Senator Mike Rush, who authored the safety amendment: just under $7,000
Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Cohen addressed the pattern in an email, stating, Employees’ donations are personal and not company-directed.
Where the Bill Stands Now
Anthropic won this round in the Senate, but the fight isn’t over. The bill’s final language is still being hashed out in closed-door negotiations between House and Senate leaders, and nothing is locked in until that process wraps.
The Massachusetts fight is really a proxy for a bigger national one. Anthropic has staked its brand on safety-first messaging, while OpenAI has consistently pushed for lighter, more uniform regulation across states. Watching where each company spends money and lobbying muscle is often a better signal of their actual position than their public statements.
Hashlytics Take
Calling this a “donation” undersells what’s happening. Ten employees giving identical amounts to the same legislators on the same day isn’t a company staying neutral while individuals exercise their civic rights, it’s a coordinated push that happens to route around corporate PAC disclosure rules. Anthropic’s spokesperson is technically correct that the money is personal, but the pattern reads like an org chart with a checkbook. The interesting tell here isn’t the dollar amount, it’s that Anthropic is fighting for stricter rules than its competitor. That’s either genuine conviction or a bet that tougher regulation locks in an advantage for whoever’s already ahead on safety infrastructure. Probably both.
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