Alex Bores vs. AI in NY-12

A pro-AI super PAC isn’t backing down after Assembly Member and congressional candidate Alex Bores sent the group a cease-and-desist letter alleging they made false statements in an attack ad about his work with the controversial data company Palantir.

Think Big PAC already recorded spending $326,000 on the new TV and digital ad, after previously spending nearly $120,000 airing an initial attack ad against Bores in December.

The letter, sent by Bores’ campaign over the weekend to Think Big PAC – an affiliate of the pro-AI Leading the Future super PAC that has pledged to spend $100 million in the midterms – alleges Think Big is making “false and defamatory statements.” Namely, the ad states that Bores made hundreds of thousands of dollars off “building and selling the tech for ICE, enabling ICE, and powering their deportations” while working at Palantir. It’s the second ad against Bores run by the PAC, which opposes state-level AI regulation like Bores’ RAISE Act in New York.

City & State previously reported that Bores’ tenure at Palantir overlapped with an ongoing contract the company holds with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bores has said that he never worked on the ICE contract – and said he declined to include immigration work on a contract with the U.S. Department of Justice that he did work on. Bores has said he left Palantir because of its controversial work with ICE, though that controversy began well before he departed. Bores has recently called to abolish ICE, as have most of his competitors in the Democratic primary for the 12th Congressional District in Manhattan.

“To falsely say, as you have, that Mr. Bores has ever enabled, worked for, or profited from supporting ICE places that life’s work in jeopardy—injuring not only Mr. Bores’ campaign for office, but his personal and professional standing as well,” the cease-and-desist letter continues. 

But that letter is not deterring Think Big PAC, and it’s unclear if any TV stations running the ad – which were also sent cease-and-deists letters – have plans to take it down response. The letter accuses the PAC of placing the ad buy too late on Friday for stations to pull them over the weekend.

Josh Vlasto, who is working with both Leading the Future PAC and Think Big PAC, accused Bores of hypocrisy. “While he now postures for political gain, his own record shows years spent working inside the very systems he attacks,” Vlasto said in a statement. “Alex Bores has consistently played political games with our economic and national security, pushing legislation that would hand AI oversight to Albany bureaucrats to appease his ideologically motivated doomer supporters rather than advance serious, national solutions. Given his rhetoric, the public is entitled to full transparency. Mr. Bores should immediately disclose the complete scope of his work for Palantir, including the duration of his employment, the nature of the products or services he worked on, whether their products or services were used in the company’s relationship with ICE, the government agencies or commercial clients involved, and all compensation received.”

Bores’ campaign said again on Monday that his work at Palantir did not cross over with the ICE contract. That is also true of a 2018 patent for a database system that Bores’ name is on, a campaign spokesperson said. That software was not used for work with ICE, the campaign said, but for a contract with the DOJ to read loan tapes of big banks.

The super PAC’s hypocrisy charge is one that Bores isn’t leaving hanging. A Trump-supporting co-founder of Palantir, Joe Lonsdale, has been reported as a major contributor to the larger group affiliated with the PAC that is bashing Bores for working for Palantir. Lonsdale has previously been reported as a backer of the $100 million Leading the Future group. Asked about Lonsdale’s connection, Vlasto said he donated to the Republican PAC affiliated with Leading the Future, known as American Mission PAC, rather than the Democratic-oritented Think Big PAC which is spending in Bores’ race. It’s a technical distinction, but one that may fail to soften any blow of hypocrisy launched at the PAC itself. 

“These AI Goliaths want to take over our safety, our workforce, and our kids’ minds for their own personal profit and power,” Bores said in a statement Monday afternoon, in which he knocked the PAC’s Trump-linked donors. “The AI oligarchs have endless resources and are highly motivated to keep growing their profits at (our) expense. If there isn’t a movement to counter their efforts, all Americans will pay the price. And ground zero for that movement is now NY-12.”

A couple campaign consultants said sending cease-and-desist letters over attack ads isn’t entirely uncommon, but isn’t something a campaign does for every negative ad. It’s done “if you feel as though it’s a level of crossing the line where it’s egregious enough that it’s no longer the gamesmanship of the campaign, but is actually just outright lying,” said Democratic campaign strategist Lupe Todd-Medina, speaking generally about the practice, not the Bores ad.

Think Big is running the ads early, a full five months before the June Democratic primary to fill the retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat. Tying a candidate to ICE could be a potent attack in the dark blue district covering the middle of Manhattan. The race – which also features Jack Schlossberg and George Conway among the candidates – is expected to largely focus on how candidates plan to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda. 

Case in point: Assembly Member Micah Lasher – who along with Bores is seen as a frontrunner in the nearly dozen-person race – traveled to Minneapolis this weekend, where federal agents have killed two people, to join protests against ICE.

For all the critical attention Think Big PAC is sending Bores’ way, his campaign still sees that attention as a net positive. “I want to thank [the PAC] for their partnership in raising up the issue of how we regulate an incredibly powerful technology so that the future is one that benefits all of us,” Bores told WIRED in November.