A visitor to Mobile World Congress, the telecommunications industry’s largest annual gathering, in Barcelona watches an AI sign on an animated screen.
Josep Lago | AFP | getty images
OpenAI and Anthropic increased their federal lobbying spending to record levels in the second quarter of 2026 as the artificial intelligence industry spent millions of dollars to influence Washington ahead of the midterm elections and ahead of its highly anticipated IPO.
The two major AI developers combined spent $3.17 million during the quarter, up 23% from the first three months of the year, according to federal lobbying disclosures.
Anthropic spent $1.97 million from April to June, up 26% from the first quarter. OpenAI spent $1.2 million, an increase of about 18%. Companies reported lobbying on issues including cybersecurity, copyright, cloud computing, and defense procurement.
Monitoring lobbying spending, which companies must report to Congress quarterly, is one way to find out which companies and industries are most active in influencing the federal government. Companies interested in shaping legislation or regulation often increase their spending.
Established technology and defense companies still spend far more overall, but OpenAI and Anthropic are closing the gap with some of Washington’s largest corporate lobbying operations.
For example, Anthropic spent more on lobbying NVIDIA during the quarter and almost matched Oracle’s Total $2 million. OpenAI came within $50,000 of Nvidia, which spent $1.25 million.
Both AI companies also sharply increased their spending from the second quarter of last year: Anthropic more than doubled, while OpenAI nearly doubled.
CNBC analysis of five “Magnificent 7” tech companies – meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA And Tesla – Found that they spent a combined $21.25 million on federal lobbying during the second quarter, essentially unchanged from $21.27 million in the first quarter.
META was the biggest spender in the second quarter with $5.99 million, although its lobbying expenditures dropped 15% compared to the first quarter of this year. Amazon’s spending remained virtually unchanged at $4.36 million.
Google and Microsoft went in opposite directions. Google increased its spending 25% from the previous quarter to $3.57 million, while Microsoft increased its total spending by nearly 13% to $2.69 million.
Those companies collectively increased their lobbying spending by 7.7 percent over the second quarter of 2025 as technology continues to dominate the headlines on Capitol Hill. They reported lobbying in the most recent quarter on issues including trade, China, taxes and export controls.
Major defense contractors, another sector that is habitually a big spender like technology, reduced their combined spending compared with the previous quarter.
The eight largest publicly traded U.S. defense contractors, ranked by fiscal year 2024 Defense Department contract obligations in the latest General Services Administration release. SAM.gov Top 100 Contractors Reportspent $19.68 million on federal lobbying in the second quarter, down 3.3% from $20.36 million in the first quarter.
Lockheed Martin led the group at $4.18 million, followed by rtx at $3.86 million and general mobility At $3.42 million.
RTX cut its spending by $600,000, the largest decline in dollar terms from the first quarter to the second quarter among defense companies reviewed by CNBC. L3Harris The largest decline in percentage was recorded, bringing its expenses down by approximately 45% to $530,000. Huntington Ingalls, Northrop Grumman And Leidos Double digit decline was also recorded.
boeing Spending had the largest increase among the eight companies, with spending rising 13% to $2.77 million.