One of Silicon Valley’s most storied venture capital firms has emerged as a hidden hand steering artificial intelligence policy in Washington, as President Donald Trump embraces the industry’s relentless push into the emerging technology.

Andreessen Horowitz is now regularly the first outside call that top White House officials and senior Republican congressional aides make when considering moves that could affect tech companies’ AI plans, according to current and former White House and congressional aides.

Their sounding board is the firm’s chief lobbyist in the nation’s capital, Collin McCune. The firm, colloquially known by the shorthand a16z for the 16 letters between the A and Z in its name, arguably has veto power over any AI-related proposals, according to one former White House official.

“They are an absolute lobbying juggernaut and probably the most powerful single company that I’ve seen in recent years,” said Doug Calidas, top lobbyist with Americans for Responsible Innovation, a group that has opposed a16z’s push to curtail state AI laws.

The firm’s ascent in Washington has been fueled by massive influence spending, co-founder Marc Andreessen’s close ties to Trump, and a network of former firm partners working in key administration positions. It’s also benefited from savvy casting of its portfolio of insurgent startups as exemplars of the kind of free-market innovation celebrated by Republican Washington’s reigning conservative ideology.

Andreessen Horowitz’s bold, maximalist approach and deregulatory zeal have buttressed the administration’s view that most government-imposed guardrails on AI endanger U.S. competitiveness in a fast-developing technology that has helped power the country’s recent economic growth. It has been a key driver of the Trump White House’s moves to thwart state governments’ efforts to regulate AI.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement that Trump and his advisers are “always willing to hear out business and technology leaders” but “the only special interest guiding the Administration’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people and the only person with veto power over the Administration’s policy-making is President Trump.”

McCune said in a statement Trump is the "only person setting AI policy for this administration."

As of January, a16z had $90 billion in assets under management, making it the richest venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. The firm recently raised $15 billion, its largest haul ever, and has dedicated billions to AI upstarts including coding startup Cursor and AI leaderboard platform LM Arena. They all stand to benefit from the kind of minimal regulatory policies the firm is pressing in Washington, as would stakes a16z holds in larger companies such as OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc.

The powerhouse firm’s determination not to give ground has made compromise on AI legislation more difficult and at times ruffled lobbyists for major tech companies who are allies in Washington policy struggles. While Microsoft, Amazon and other tech giants told lawmakers they were open to compromises on federal AI standards, a16z dismissed proposals that would have created significant new oversight of AI development, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

“What ends up happening is the big companies start making trade-offs,” said Jai Ramaswamy, a16z’s chief legal and policy officer. While large companies can call upon lawyers and compliance budgets, “there’s far less ability to make those tradeoffs by a couple of people in a garage.”

A broad range of AI skeptics believe the technology should be regulated due to its potential to harm users, replicate real-world biases against marginalized people, and replace employees across industries. Some AI developers even posit that, left unchecked, AI could spell the end of the world.

A drive in December to use must-pass defense legislation to block state laws regulating AI safety was characteristic of a16z’s influence. Just a few months earlier, a coalition of Republican governors, populist MAGA influencers and children’s safety groups had beaten back the same gambit, when tech industry allies in Congress tried to attach a similar provision to Trump’s signature tax law.

McCune, the a16z lobbyist, was the first person outside government a senior Republican aide called when weighing the defense bill maneuver, according to the aide. McCune responded with emphatic encouragement and went into action, helping coordinate the push with White House AI czar David Sacks, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz.

The legislative maneuver didn’t work, but Trump then used his own power to the same end, signing an executive order seeking to deter states from imposing guardrails to prevent AI-related harms. And a16z helped guide the administration on what to put in the directive, according to one person close to the White House. The executive order echoed a novel idea pushed by a16z, which argues the Constitution prevents states from governing the national AI market under the so-called “dormant commerce clause.”

Andreessen, the firm’s brash co-founder, is at the pinnacle of its influence operation. The 54-year-old helped usher in the Internet era as one of the founders of Netscape, which in 1994 released the first widely used commercial web browser. He and co-founder Ben Horowitz launched a16z months after the 2008 financial crash, when many investors were retreating. A larger-than-life personality with a 6-foot-5-inch frame to match, he quipped to Fortune his motto could be “Often wrong, never in doubt.”

Once a bipartisan campaign donor who contributed to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, Andreessen recoiled from the Biden administration’s press for more robust regulation of tech companies — in particular moves limiting crypto and tech company acquisitions. He’s since become a GOP megadonor and positioned himself as a thought leader of the “tech right.”

After padding Trump’s campaign coffers with $2.5 million in 2024, Andreessen spent hours with the president at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat. He is regularly on the phone to discuss tech policy with Trump and also speaks with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to people close to the White House.

He’s been as deliberate cultivating relationships in Congress. Andreessen headlined House Speaker Mike Johnson’s GOP donor retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 2024. He’s since become a frequent visitor to Washington and developed a reputation for hosting intimate dinners with lawmakers at popular restaurants. Prone to philosophizing in everyday conversation, he readily entertains without making a specific policy ask. During a two-hour dinner with Republican Senators Eric Schmitt and Mike Lee late last year, he mostly discussed books and podcasts about AI that he was excited about, according to one person familiar with the meeting.

The firm first registered to lobby in 2023, focusing on crypto legislation and defense procurement, areas where it also has large tech investment portfolios.

While venture capital firms traditionally model political risk their investments face, a16z is “actively trying to help do something about it before it upends their investments,” said Adam Thierer, senior fellow at R Street Institute, a center-right think tank.

Andreessen is unapologetic. “In theory, everybody, every venture firm, every tech company, should be weighing in on these things. In practice, what happens is most of them just simply don't,” Andreessen said in a January episode of a podcast produced by a16z. He and Horowitz “basically concluded that the stakes here were just way too high. If we’re going to be the industry leader, we just have to take responsibility for our own destiny.”

And a16z has been willing to pay the cost. More so than other venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, a16z has invested heavily in influencing government — ramping up its spending to $3.53 million on federal lobbying alone in 2025, double its expenditures in 2024, according to required disclosures.

The firm helped start a new lobbying group to fight state laws, the American Innovators Network, which spent more than $350,000 opposing AI safety legislation in New York alone and has its sights on similar bills gathering momentum in other legislatures across the country.

To shape a Congress friendlier to their agenda, Andreessen and Horowitz together committed $50 million to a new $100 million super political action committee called Leading the Future that supports industry allies and opposes AI critics. The group is seeking to replicate the success of the a16z-backed crypto PAC Fairshake, which spent tens of millions of dollars successfully influencing key 2024 congressional elections.

“Everyone I talk to is very aware there’s a $100 million dragon parked there, waiting to fire-breathe on them,” said Sunny Gandhi, vice president of political affairs for the AI safety group Encode.

The firm has plenty of other connections in Washington. Sacks frequently meets with a16z’s government affairs team, according to people familiar with the relationship. Sriram Krishnan, the senior White House policy adviser on AI, was a partner at a16z before joining the administration. The firm’s reputation for close relations with Sacks and Krishnan in turn bolsters congressional aides’ interest in engaging with the a16z lobbying team.

But the VC firm’s leaders are determined to build influence that outlasts Trump’s presidency and are hedging against a Democratic return to power. Andreessen and a16z partner Chris Dixon embraced an invitation from moderate Democrats to hold a policy meeting last spring focused on AI and crypto, an event that was well-attended by House Democrats, said one person who attended the event.

“They’re trying to foster pro-innovation factions within each of the parties, and at all levels of government,” said Adam Kovacevich, the head of the Democratic-aligned tech association Chamber of Progress, which counts a16z as one of its members.

Andreessen and Horowitz have branded their drive for light-touch regulation a “Little Tech Agenda,” seeking to position the VC firm as a champion of underdog startups with a manifesto originally published in 2024 amid public backlash against Big Tech. McCune, a16z’s top lobbyist, hews to the narrative, saying his guiding light is to “preserve the Little Tech builders and let them flourish.”

Critics scoff. “They assume that every person that wants to have any sort of protection for Americans is an idiot,” said Alex Bores, a New York assemblyman who has been targeted by a16z over his sponsorship of AI safety legislation in his state.

The firm maintains stakes in several large companies, including SpaceX, xAI, Airbnb Inc. and Anduril Industries Inc., the fruits of early investments that have exploded in value. A16z is an investor in 10 of the world’s top 15 VC-backed private companies by valuation, according to PitchBook. Its core business is betting on new businesses it hopes will become the next tech giants — a model that depends on protecting startups’ ability to rapidly scale up. Another key way a16z makes money is big tech companies acquiring their startup investments.

Those stakes in major tech companies make a16z’s championship of “little tech” ring hollow, according to the firm's critics. The firm hasn’t lobbied in favor of deploying antitrust laws to rein in the power of the biggest tech companies.

Right now, a16z’s positions often align with the biggest tech companies on AI policy. When Bores, the New York assemblyman, was close to passing his AI safety bill, he asked the firm’s policy team to send him recommendations about how to define small, medium and large AI developers. Bores agreed it made sense for his bill’s most onerous provisions to apply only to the largest companies in order to protect startups.

A16z sent back a proposal: “small” developers should be defined as companies reporting up to $50 billion in annual revenue from their AI products.

“That excludes literally every company on earth,” Bores said in an interview. Ultimately, New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a version of the bill that was significantly narrowed following an intense lobbying campaign by a16z and other tech companies.

Now, the firm has set its sights on the next act: helping to craft a federal AI standard, which could preempt state AI laws beyond Trump’s presidency. A16z published its roadmap for federal AI legislation in mid-December, calling for provisions including “model transparency,” which would require AI developers to disclose some details about their models such as their intended purposes, and protections for children using AI. Otherwise, a16z’s proposal focuses on punishing “bad actors” who misuse AI rather than regulating developers.

Calidas with AI safety group Americans for Responsible Innovation countered that a16z’s high-level proposals are “baby steps" that lack plans to "mitigate" AI threats. He added their proposed transparency provision would merely require developers to publish the "simplest" details about their products.

Key Republicans in Congress have adopted a16z’s plan as their starting point, according to two congressional aides involved in preparations. But federal AI legislation is shaping up as a major fight that will draw in a myriad of interests, including safety groups backing measures that would hold AI developers liable for harms caused by their products.

“It’s going to be an uphill battle of how much influence we can have,” said Gandhi with Encode. “But they won’t be able to railroad something through.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.