$5,000 per TikTok, OpenAI-linked dark money organization hires influencers to promote "Chinese AI threat"

According to Beating Monitoring, a survey by WIRED found that the non-profit organization Build American AI is systematically paying social media influencers through the influencer marketing agency SM4 to spread messages on TikTok and Instagram about “Chinese AI threatening the United States.” Build American AI is an affiliated dark money organization (501©(4), not required to disclose donors) of the super political action committee Leading the Future, which receives funding from OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and AI company Perplexity.

The operation is divided into two phases. The first phase recruits lifestyle influencers to broadly promote the benefits of American AI, with many mother-and-family bloggers with hundreds of thousands of followers participating in posting, marked as “ads” but not disclosing the specific funders. The second phase shifts to a Chinese narrative, with SM4 offering $5,000 per TikTok video to recruit creators, requiring them to naturally incorporate language about “China stealing American data and jobs” in everyday content (such as making breakfast for children). Build American AI provides sample scripts stating: “China is desperately trying to beat the U.S. in AI. If they win, China will get my and my child’s personal data and steal jobs that should belong to America.”

This activity operates along political lines: SM4 is responsible for recruiting left-wing creators, while another partner organization handles the right wing. Internal briefing documents show that the next step plans to expand from female lifestyle bloggers to left-wing political commentators, business and tech leaders, and male lifestyle bloggers. WIRED reporter Taylor Lorenz was invited by SM4 to participate and learn about the activity details, and several other creators who received the same invitation confirmed this operation.

Leading the Future claims to have received $140 million in donations and commitments, with $51 million available as of April. FEC documents show that Brockman and his wife each donated $12.5 million, and Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz each donated $12.5 million. OpenAI stated that the company has no connection to Leading the Future or Build American AI and has not provided funding or support; Palantir also said it has not invested.

Jamie Cohen, associate professor of media studies at Queen’s College, told WIRED that influencers accepting undisclosed industry funding to promote specific companies’ messages, without public awareness, “is highly corrosive to democracy,” and “this is propaganda.”