The AI Grift: How the Punk Administration’s ‘Action Plan’ Rewards Big Tech’s Lobbying Blitz

With the patriotic strains of “God Bless the USA” filling the air at the “Winning the AI Race” summit, President Felonious Punk made a solemn decree. “America must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with a green light, not strangled with red tape,” he announced to a curated audience of tech billionaires, venture capitalists, and defense contractors. His new “AI Action Plan,” he promised, would unleash a new era of American dominance. But as the details of this plan emerge, a crucial question comes into focus: Is this a visionary strategy for American competitiveness, or is it a transactional giveaway to the very tech lobby that organized the summit and has spent millions to influence its outcome?

Part I: The ‘Deregulate and Expedite’ Blitz

The core of the administration’s new strategy is a massive pivot away from the flashy, consumer-facing “chatbot wars” to a brute-force focus on physical infrastructure. The new trinity of American AI dominance, according to the plan, is chips, data centers, and the energy grids to power them. To achieve this, the President signed executive orders designed to fast-track the construction of these power-hungry facilities by creating new exemptions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and streamlining permits under the Clean Water Act. Vice President JD Fuxacouch echoed this sentiment, framing any form of regulation as “stupid policies that allow other countries to catch up.” The message is clear: AI infrastructure is to be treated like the interstate highway system, a national imperative before which environmental and local concerns must fall.

Part II: The Price of Admission

This sudden, aggressive push for deregulation did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the direct result of a massive and record-breaking lobbying campaign by the tech industry. A recent report from the nonprofit Issue One, cited by The Guardian, reveals the staggering scale of this influence operation. In 2025 alone, eight of the largest tech companies spent a combined $36 million on lobbying—an average of about $320,000 for every single day Congress was in session. Nvidia’s spending surged by 388%. Corporate executives made pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago and donated to inauguration funds. The “AI Action Plan,” therefore, must be seen not as a visionary policy, but as a return on investment for Big Tech. It is a clear quid pro quo, where millions in lobbying and political access have purchased the “green light” of deregulation that the industry has long craved.

Part III: The Contradictions of “America First”

This new policy also represents a stunning and chaotic reversal of the previous administration’s national security posture. The Biden administration operated under a “high fence” strategy, seeking to contain the threat of adversarial AI by restricting exports of the most advanced chips. The Punk administration has explicitly rescinded these rules. This contradiction is perfectly illustrated by the administration’s handling of Nvidia’s H20 chip, which is designed for the Chinese market. After first blocking its export, the President reversed course and allowed sales to resume, sparking outrage even among his own Republican allies. This move demonstrates that the new policy is often driven less by a coherent national security strategy and more by a desire to reward politically connected corporate giants.

Part IV: The Global Power Play

The administration’s stated goal, in the words of White House technology director Michael Kratsios, is to make “the entire world… be running on an American artificial intelligence stack.” This is a vision of American technological and economic imperialism. It stands in stark contrast to China’s competing “soft-power” strategy, which proposes a global, “cooperative” consortium in an effort to win over developing nations and create its own sphere of influence. Meanwhile, a coalition of over 100 labor, environmental, and civil rights groups has proposed a “People’s AI action plan,” warning against letting “big tech and big oil lobbyists write the rules.” These three competing visions—American imperial control, a Chinese cooperative façade, and a citizen-led demand for accountability—define the new global struggle for the future of AI.

A Grift Wrapped in a Flag

When viewed in its totality, the administration’s “AI Action Plan” is revealed to be not a serious strategy to win a technological race, but a grift wrapped in the flag of patriotism. It is a transactional deal that trades long-term environmental protections and national security guardrails for the short-term economic benefit of a handful of favored corporations that have paid handsomely for the privilege. This leaves the American public with a final, chilling question. Having already dismantled the previous administration’s security rules, what happens when this new industrial policy collides with the President’s own signature policies? Would a President so committed to “winning” the AI race be willing to sacrifice even his beloved tariffs if they were deemed an obstacle to a favored company building a new data center? The “shock therapy” for American competitiveness may ultimately prove to be a shock to his own most ardent supporters, revealing that in this new race, the only consistent ideology is winning at all costs.