ChainThink report: According to a WIRED investigation, the nonprofit organization Build American AI is systematically paying social media influencers through influencer marketing agency SM4 to spread narratives about "China's AI threat to the United States" on TikTok and Instagram.

Build American AI is a dark money affiliate (501(c)(4)) of the super PAC Leading the Future, which has received funding from OpenAI co-founder and CEO Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and AI company Perplexity.

The campaign proceeds in two phases: In Phase One, lifestyle influencers are recruited to broadly promote the benefits of U.S. AI; multiple micro-influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers in parenting and family niches have posted content marked as "ad" but without disclosing the actual funding source.

In Phase Two, the narrative shifts toward China-related messaging: SM4 offers $5,000 per TikTok video to creators, instructing them to naturally integrate rhetoric such as "China stealing U.S. data and jobs" into everyday content.

The operation is run along political lines, with plans to expand next from female lifestyle influencers to left-leaning political commentators, business and tech leaders, and male lifestyle influencers.

Leading the Future claims to have raised $140 million in donations and commitments, with $51 million in spendable funds available as of April.

OpenAI and Palantir both deny contributing financially. Jamie Cohen, associate professor of media studies at Queens College, stated this operation is highly corrosive to democracy and constitutes strategic disinformation campaigns.