David Sacks, the former White House AI and crypto adviser, is sounding the alarm about what he sees as a well-funded campaign to steer AI regulation through fear. His target: Anthropic, the Claude-maker preparing for what could be one of the largest tech IPOs in history, and the broader Effective Altruism ecosystem he says is bankrolling narratives about AI-driven civilizational collapse.
The core of Sacks’ argument is straightforward. Companies warning loudest about AI dangers are often the same ones positioned to benefit from the regulatory moats those warnings create.
The billion-dollar doom machine
Sacks, who co-hosts the All-In podcast alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, has pointed to Open Philanthropy as a central node in what he describes as a coordinated influence operation. The Effective Altruism-affiliated organization has directed over $1 billion toward AI-risk advocacy and research, funding a sprawling network of researchers, think tanks, and policy shops focused on the existential dangers of artificial intelligence.
Sacks’ concern isn’t that AI safety research exists. It’s that the funding concentration creates an incentive structure where catastrophizing about AI becomes professionally rewarding. Researchers who predict doom get grants. Organizations that warn about existential risk get donations. And companies that position themselves as the “responsible” AI labs get regulatory advantages over competitors who just want to ship products.
