By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 27, 2026 – A national investigation into the funding behind organizations that warn about artificial intelligence has an Alaska connection: The executive director of one of the groups identified by the Washington Examiner gave $70,000 to Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins’s campaign for governor.
The Washington Examiner reported that the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism and Model Evaluation and Threat Research, known as METR, have funding and personnel connections to people who also played roles in the rise of AI company Anthropic.
The report raises concerns about how those relationships are disclosed when the organizations contribute to public debate over AI risks and regulation, along with the millions they are spending to elect certain people to office.
The Alaska link is Emma Jane Abele. METR identifies Abele as its executive director, while The Alaska Story previously reported in July that she contributed a combined $70,000 to Kreiss-Tomkins.
The connection extends beyond Abele to six Anthropic employees who contributed a combined $372,000 to Kreiss-Tomkins between February and May. The Alaska Story identified gifts including $100,000 from Anthropic employee Drake Thomas and $70,000 from employee Jan Leike. Thomas, who grew up in Kenai, has said he introduced Kreiss-Tomkins to other people at Anthropic.
The Examiner traced ties between Tarbell and METR and figures including Anthropic early backers Dustin Moskovitz and Jaan Tallinn, as well as AI researcher Paul Christiano. Tarbell publicly lists Coefficient Giving – formerly called Open Philanthropy — as a major funder. Those institutional relationships explain why the groups’ so-called independence has is in question.
The contributions identified in Alaska came from individuals employed by Anthropic, METR and other AI-related organizations.
Kreiss-Tomkins has proposed a moratorium on new Alaska data centers until the Legislature adopts comprehensive regulations.
That position puts AI infrastructure policy squarely in the governor’s race at the same time that people working in the national AI safety field are making substantial personal contributions to his campaign. The shared policy interest and financial support are now well documented.
For Alaska voters, the Examiner report adds context to a wealthy donor network already visible in JKT’s race.
10 thoughts on “National probe of Anthropic’s AI ‘safety network’ leads to a major donor in JKT campaign”
I love my donors, especially the large donors. I get substantial outreach into the young, liberal Alaskan voters, especially the LGBTQ friendly. Queers are my base supporters. Democrats always fall in line with their marching orders. Even the few straight Democrats. I’m glad the Republican candidates are still fighting with each other. Such panic and disarray is to my benefit. And remember, do not rank anyone but me for governor. Just JKT. I will probably win outright with over 50% of the vote, but ranking can only assist the Republicans in this case. And we don’t need any of that garbage.
Sure glad I dropped out to let you take over, Jonathan. I’m am old fart with no idea whatsoever how to run Alaska. I’m more than happy to let you and your fag brigade run the show. That’s what Mary and I both agreed on. She rolls with fags and she doesn’t regard the word as a slur. You, JKT, will tax the hell out of Alaskans and terminate the PFD to a token $1/year. Shove all the extra change into environmental regulations, LGBTQ in classroom activities, free sex changes for kids and adults, hundreds of new laws to favor homosexuals. A state income tax. Our future is going to be so bright with you as our new governor. You may even get a free sex change yourself and become the first governor in US history elected as a bio male, but lead as a woman (tranny).
Exciting times ahead.
I’m glad you dropped out too, Tom. Nicholas and I have been talking alot.
The Alaska homosexual community would have blamed you for ruining their chances if you stayed in the race. And you know how nasty the homosexuals are. Now you are safe and can get back to work on Nicholas’ campaign for Congress.
Interesting that JKT doesn’t want voters to rank anybody but him in the general election. Further proof of Democrat hypocrisy. Rank only when ranking benefits the Democrats …….ie. “rank the red” in the governor’s race is a sure path to defeat for Republicans.
Seems reasonable to expect Jonathan’s proposed moratorium on new Alaska data centers until the Legislature adopts comprehensive regulations is all about Governor Kreiss-Tomkins getting his Anthropic sponsor firmly, inextricably embedded into the political process which pretends to “regulate” artificial-intelligence deployment in Alaska.
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No? Nobody among the elected (and unelected) geniuses infesting Alaska’s legislature knows enough about artificial intelligence to “regulate” it. But we have Governor Kreiss-Tomkins’ AI experts ready to advise, write regs, enforce regs, make AI safe again. Who’ll jeopardize his political career by arguing otherwise?
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Why the fuss? Nearly 100 free-use AI models, and tutorials for using them, already exist. You can do pretty much anything with them. Bad news for Anthropic is you don’t need Anthropic, or their hyperscale data centers, to run your free-AI model.
(https://lmmarketcap.com/free-ai-models)
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More to the point, and probably why Anthropic cares so much, you don’t have to pay Anthropic anything to design, operate, process, or store your free-use AI model.
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Anthropic can’t stiff you with license agreements and fees which “regulate” your stuff, especially if it looks like competition to them.
Anthropic can’t monitor, sift through, sell –or regulate– stuff you store in their data centers, because you don’t need their data centers.
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What if Americans figure out they don’t need a $965B company, its data centers, services, or regulations, because they can do it all with free-AI and distributed computing?
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There’s your humanity-ending crisis. So Anthropic stakes their claim, pays for government protection, designs the tools which government uses to protect them, what can possibly go wrong?
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And there’s your “AI safety network”, no?
Anthropic / OpenAI are led by the Biden WH AI brain trust. They want to create a regulatory structure to tamp down on the startups with them in charge, and are busily purchasing politicians like JKT to put them in charge – just like you noted. Alaska is not the only one.
Their problem is that there is already a distributed approach to massive computing that does not require datacenters that renders that approach obsolete.
It might even render Musk’s plans to manufacture data center satellites on the moon obsolete before it begins. Musk rarely makes mistakes on the big things, and if the datacenter satellites aren’t necessary anymore, that infrastructure can be used for other things. Fun stuff. Cheers –
I just received a JKweerTamponkin campaign add in my mailbox. It asks if “billionaires ” trying to build data centers in AK should get to hide their political donations. It recommends voting NO on prop 2 to prevent hidden funding. The required funding disclosure on the mailout
lists the top 3 contributors are based in DC and Colorado, and NEA is one of them. Now we learn the democrat gov candidate is using the money from Anthropic !
It’s the same lying tactic used in 2020 to sell the RCV
deception funded by dark $ insinuatiing voting no on 2 will prevent said funding, while listing the lower 48 source! There’s no mention of their rank “choice” voting scheme in the add, and we know why. This is more than an insult to thinking Alaskans intelligence, it’s FU Alaska.
VOTE YES ON 2! , and pray that jtklgbxrs whatever it is defeated.
Governor Queer Boy will give the entire state of Alaska a sex change. At great expense to all.
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