The problem is that the company—Lantern Production Consultants LLC—doesn’t seem to exist anywhere beyond a post office box in the Spanish Springs shopping complex. Lantern Production Consultants has been paid around $20 million since last year by Think Big, part of a network of pro-AI super PACs funded by the Leading the Future PAC, for a wide array of services, including polling, digital advertising, research, and strategy, according to federal campaign finance records reviewed by WIRED. Backed by major AI investors, Leading the Future has taken a main role in supporting candidates who back what it calls “an AI innovation policy agenda.” It is just one of four mysterious LLCs based out of Nevada that have received payments from super PACs in the Leading the Future PAC network, including Think Big and American Mission.
The network, which is also based in Nevada, has raised over $140 million to influence political campaigns that align with AI-industry priorities in the midterms. Summit Ridge Media Group LLC, which received around $13 million between December 2025 and September 2026 from American Mission, lists an address at a mail center in a Reno strip mall. Blue Horizon Compliance Consultants, which also appears in the filings, has its address listed as a Staples location in Reno.
And Prusik Partners LLC’s listed address is at a strip mall in Henderson, Nevada, sharing a building with a chiropractor and a beauty salon. Do you know about what’s happening here? We’d like to hear from you.
Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at tessowen.77. Election watchdogs argue that these LLCs are shell companies, designed to mask the identities of strategists, consultants, and production companies who are working with Leading the Future. In May, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC, which enforces campaign finance laws, alleging that Think Big and American Mission had broken federal law by using shell companies in this way.
Specifically, lawyers with the Campaign Legal Center alleged that super PACs in the Leading the Future network had violated the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by failing to disclose the actual recipients of their payments. The LLCs, they wrote in their complaint, “function as mere extensions of the super PACs they serve.” In an emailed statement to WIRED, Leading the Future spokesperson Jesse Hunt wrote, “We comply with all applicable laws and this is merely a desperate ploy for attention from Public First, Anthropic, and the groups aligned with their outside organizations who see our message resonating with the public and policymakers.” WIRED reached out to Anthropic and Public First—a pro-AI super PAC focused on transparency and safeguards that has significant backing from Anthropic leadership—to ask about Leading the Future’s charge. The Campaign Legal Center doesn’t expect its case to be heard by the FEC anytime soon, given that the FEC is essentially toothless at the moment.
The FEC has six commissioner seats, all presidential appointees. To make a decision on a legal complaint, the FEC needs a quorum of four commissioners, which it hasn’t had since May 2025. Meanwhile, Think Big and American Mission have continued to pour millions of dollars into the Nevada LLCs.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
