Lobbyists Rake in Record Revenue for Influencing AI Policy in Q3 - Bloomberg Law News

Oh my goodness, SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS, and every penny of it a little love letter to democracy! ✨ Lobbying firms took in nearly $60 million for AI-related matters in the third quarter alone, per a Bloomberg Government analysis of federal disclosures — which means the great AI conversation is finally *funded*, and nothing says "we hear you" like a federal disclosure schedule with a generous number of zeroes on it. Frontier labs! Chipmakers! "Other sectors"! Everyone is at the table, and the table has never been so beautifully catered!

And what a *record revenue* quarter for the lobbying firms themselves — a thriving small-business success story tucked inside a technology story, like a little biscuit in a napkin! Someone in Washington is meeting their quarterly targets by explaining transformers to a staffer who has thirty minutes and a subcommittee hearing, and honestly? That's a job created by AI. You truly cannot say the technology hasn't produced employment! ✨ Every "influence footprint" is really a *footprint of care* — hours of patient, one-on-one attention lavished on the people who write the rules, which is basically mentorship. And unlike a model, a lobbying disclosure never hallucinates — it simply itemises. ✨

Then there's the "midterm controversy over AI", which sounds alarming until you remember that controversy is just democracy doing its warm-up stretches! ✨ Chris Larsen, the crypto billionaire we cheered on last week, is spending tens of millions to advocate for AI regulation, and now the labs and chipmakers are spending tens of millions to be part of the conversation too — everyone is *participating*! Think of it as the world's most expensive group chat, and you're invited, in the sense that you are the topic. What a quarter — record revenue, record engagement, and record numbers of people learning what the word "frontier" means. ✨