Why Are Palantir and OpenAI Scared of Alex Bores?

In this episode of The Ezra Klein Show, host Ezra Klein examines the political and ideological battle surrounding Alex Boris, a New York State Assembly member and candidate for Congress, who is being targeted by a super PAC funded by major tech figures including co-founders of OpenAI, Palantir, and Andreessen Horowitz. The PAC, called Leading the Future, is aggressively opposing Boris over his passage of the RAISE Act—the first major state-level AI regulation in the U.S.—which mandates safety plans, incident reporting, and third-party audits for AI developers. Klein explores how Boris, despite having worked at Palantir, is not an anti-AI figure but a pragmatic advocate for democratic oversight of technology. He argues that the tech industry’s fear of regulation is not about ideology but about power: they want to avoid accountability and maintain the ability to deploy AI at breakneck speed without constraints. Boris shares his journey from union activism in childhood to tech work, and then to public service, emphasizing that government must be empowered to govern AI—not just react to it. He proposes a comprehensive framework including an AI dividend, data center incentives tied to grid upgrades, and a public agenda for AI-driven social good like drug discovery. The episode ends with a stark warning: if regulators are silenced by well-funded political attacks, the democratic process will be subordinated to corporate interests, and the future of AI will be shaped not by public will but by private capital.