This crypto billionaire is spending tens of millions in the midterms to take on AI companies and the GOP

Chris Larsen, chairman and co-founder of Ripple Labs Inc., in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, April 14 2026. Bloomberg/Getty; BI Chris Larsen is one of this cycle's biggest tech donors and an increasingly rare left-leaning giver. Larsen freely acknowledges the contradiction in using his immense wealth to influence politics Even with donations of millions, Larsen's spending has been no match for those opposed to regulating AI. The crypto company Ripple made Chris Larsen a billionaire. Even though he says there is far too much money in politics, Larsen has spent tens of millions in this year's midterm elections to advocate for clean energy and AI regulation and to take on the GOP. Larsen has given at least $22.5 million to federal candidates and super PACs this election cycle. That figure makes him one of the cycle's biggest individual tech donors and an increasingly rare left-leaning giver in an era of freespending right-leaning tech titans like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen. Larsen, whose net worth is estimated to be $8.4 billion by Forbes, freely acknowledges the contradiction in using his immense wealth to influence politics. He recently told podcaster Kara Swisher that Citizens United, which unleashed a torrent of corporate spending in elections, was a "huge mistake." "There's way too much money in politics," he told Swisher, arguing that he needs to spend generously to counteract the heavy donations by oil companies and other opposition. (Larsen declined to be interviewed for this story.) "If you want to get involved in policy, you have to play that game," he said. "This is politics, it's not a pillow fight." Larsen prefers 'problem solvers' Larsen cofounded OpenCoin in 2012, the company that became Ripple, which aimed to use blockchain technology to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper. He stepped down as CEO in 2016 but remains executive chairman. Ripple was valued at around $50 billion in a recent stock buyback. In 2024, Larsen announced on X that he was donating $10 million in XRP to support Kamala Harris for president. In a recent KQED interview, Larsen described himself less as a conventional centrist than as a champion of "problem solvers," candidates who focus on kitchen-table issues like housing, energy, insurance costs, and education. "We need to be there all the time and backing people that are going to solve the basic problems in California," he said, criticizing business leaders for appearing in Sacramento only when they have their own narrow issue at stake. Larsen has argued that climate cannot remain a Democratic-only cause, and that supporters of clean energy should frame their case around lower costs and economic competitiveness. "We've got to reach out across to our Republican friends and stop vilifying them," he said earlier this year. "There is a lot of room there to work on broadening our coalition." Larsen donated $6 million earlier this year to Tomorrow Coalition PAC, a pro-renewable-energy super PAC, according to campaign records. Larsen has also become a donor in the fight over AI regulation even though he told Swisher he has "indirect" stakes in OpenAI and Anthropic. Larsen said he got involved because AI companies and their allies were trying to intimidate politicians who proposed restrictions. "There is an AI arms race that's completely out of control," he told Swisher. "It's all gas, no brake, no steering." Citing risks to jobs, children, and public safety, he has recently grown more alarmed about the dangers of AI and now argues that governments should halt all new AI infrastructure. "Shut down all the data centers until we get goddamn regulations," he said in the KQED interview. "This is an incredibly dangerous moment." Even with donations of millions, Larsen's spending has been no match for those opposed to regulating AI. Federal Election Commission records show that Larsen gave more than $4 million to a super PAC created to support New York Assemblymember Alex Bores WHEN, a former Palantir engineer who co-authored AI safety legislation. "Unfortunately, some folks in the AI industry are really trying to make an example of Alex for daring to come up with reasonable guardrails to the arms race that we're all unfortunately in right now," Larsen told Politico earlier this year. "It's just the wrong thing right now, at the very moment when we have got to start collectively grabbing the steering wheel to make sure that we don't go off the cliff." Bores narrowly lost his race after heavy spending by OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz to defeat him. "Money doesn't always buy results when you have that much opposition," Larsen told Swisher. Read the original article on Business Insider