A major pro-artificial intelligence super PAC network has funneled roughly $20 million to a Nevada consulting firm that appears to exist only as a post office box in a shopping center, according to federal campaign finance records reviewed by WIRED. The report, published October 13, 2026, reveals that Lantern Production Consultants LLC—which has no physical presence beyond a mailbox at the Spanish Springs shopping complex in Sparks, Nevada—received the payments from Think Big, part of a network of super PACs funded by Leading the Future PAC. Election watchdogs claim the arrangement is designed to hide the identities of strategists and consultants working with the AI-industry-backed political operation.
Since last year, Lantern Production Consultants has collected around $20 million from Think Big for polling, digital advertising, research, and strategy services, according to the records. Three other Nevada-based limited liability companies with similarly sparse footprints have also received payments from the Leading the Future network, which has raised over $140 million to influence midterm election campaigns aligned with AI-industry priorities. Summit Ridge Media Group LLC pulled in roughly $13 million between December 2025 and September 2026 from American Mission, another super PAC in the network, while listing its address at a mail center in a Reno strip mall. Blue Horizon Compliance Consultants lists a Staples location in Reno as its address, and Prusik Partners LLC's registered address sits in a Henderson strip mall alongside a chiropractor and beauty salon. Nevada's secretary of state told WIRED they couldn't find any records for these businesses.
"This is about hiding where the money is going," Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told the outlet. In May, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Think Big and American Mission violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by failing to disclose the actual recipients of their payments. The watchdog group's complaint argues that the LLCs "function as mere extensions of the super PACs they serve." Leading the Future spokesperson Jesse Hunt responded in an emailed statement that the network complies with all applicable laws and dismissed the complaint as "merely a desperate ploy for attention" from rival groups.
The Campaign Legal Center doesn't anticipate its case will be heard anytime soon because the FEC has lacked the four-commissioner quorum needed to decide legal complaints since May 2025. Meanwhile, Think Big and American Mission have continued pouring millions into the Nevada LLCs. Leading the Future has drawn significant public attention not only because it has more cash than any other pro-AI group—bankrolled by Silicon Valley figures including billionaire Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman—but also because it channels money to super PACs supporting both Republicans and Democrats. The fact that the network plays both sides of the aisle has generated speculation about why it's spending so much on shielded vendors, since political strategists and consultants typically work exclusively with one party or the other. Kyle Morse, deputy executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, speculated to WIRED that if Think Big spends heavily in a Democratic primary using Republican vendors and strategists, that would be newsworthy information voters deserve to know.
Ports characterizes the trend as disturbing at a time when dark money already dominates politics. "There's no way of tracing the source behind the money, and that's bad enough on its own," she said. "Now there's this new component, where groups are playing games to hide where the money is being spent. As a result, voters really lack fundamental information about where the money is coming from and where it's going." The Campaign Legal Center has filed similar complaints against other PACs accused of using shell companies to shield vendors, including pro-gun YouTuber Brandon Herrera's congressional campaign in Texas and Lead Left PAC, a Republican-funded operation that posed as a Democratic entity. With the FEC unable to function and no quorum expected in the foreseeable future, there's little enforcement capacity to uncover what's happening behind the mailbox addresses. The opacity surrounding campaign finance has deepened precisely when transparency matters most, leaving voters without the tools to evaluate who's actually shaping the political messages flooding their districts.