Democrats Train Sights on AI and Crypto

Congress

With progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren set to lead the Banking Committee, oversight priorities for the Republican-friendly industries are set to change.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a critic of crypto and AI, is expected to lead the Senate Banking Committee and its investigations into the industries when Democrats run Congress next year. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

By Avani Kalra

November 6, 2026 05:21 a.m.

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The cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries are the major drivers of the data-center surge that voters rebelled against in the midterm elections, and they spent big on the losing side.

Now, Democrats, who will have complete control of Congress in January, are preparing to push back. The party, which will hold 54 seats in the upper chamber and could land two more, is expected to start with subpoenas and investigations.

Crypto groups spent $180 million while AI-affiliated groups spent over $72 million, both primarily for Republicans, in the 2026 cycle.

Democrats certainly didn’t appreciate it, but they are also aware that a purely partisan attempt at regulation or retribution will fail with a Republican president who is a big booster of both industries.

So, their first actions are likely to be bipartisan –– and heavily influenced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is expected to lead the Senate Banking Committee. The progressive has long taken strong stances on AI regulation and the crypto industry. She called for a pause in artificial intelligence development in September and joined efforts to establish a new federal agency to regulate big tech and AI.

She and other Democrats also were responsible for spiking a crypto industry-backed regulatory bill that Democrats believed was too lax in preventing the president and his family from profiting off of crypto investments.

As the Democratic caucus works out how it wants to deal with the broader industry and the potential threats posed by AI, one thing CEOs and other leading figures can expect is a demand to testify.

For instance, Warren has repeatedly criticized Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, most recently for his alleged ties to a Chinese “intelligence asset.” Though she previously has asked Huang to testify, she will soon be able to schedule hearings, direct committee investigations and set staff oversight priorities related to his business ventures. That’s also one of the areas where she’s likely to have Republican support: In the House on Thursday, several GOP committee chairs sent a letter to Huang requesting he appear for a closed-door briefing on those allegations.

The Senate Banking Committee can also issue subpoenas for documents or witnesses with a majority vote — something Warren was blocked from doing while in the minority. Democrats will now be able to pursue subpoenas for documents and witnesses related to Nvidia or Huang himself.

“NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was reportedly ‘targeted’ by a suspected Chinese spy whose Singapore-based firm bought billions in AI chips,” Warren wrote in a post on X last week. “Huang and NVIDIA’s board owe Congress answers.”

Warren is also likely to begin her push on AI with another bipartisan idea — making it more difficult for advanced American chips to reach China. In April, she introduced a bill that would prohibit exports of the most advanced AI chips to “countries of concern” alongside Sen. Jim Banks (R-Indiana).

Most legislation needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate, requiring some bipartisan cooperation. Several other Republicans, including Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, are co-sponsors of the legislation, and a number of related bipartisan bills are also floating around the Senate.

Banks has painted the pair’s bill as supportive of White House policy, which could reduce the threat of a veto.

“Congress can no longer be a bystander as the risks from AI grow nearer and millions more American chips are sent to China,” Warren said at a June 11 hearing.

The bipartisan approach makes action likelier, but Democrats will have to balance those initial steps with broader concerns about AI development from their base, which may want them to pursue other ideas Democrats have floated to regulate or stifle AI development in recent months. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, proposed a set of guidelines that would establish safety standards for the industry. Warren and Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Peter Welch of Vermont advocated for a temporary pause on AI development while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) called for a ban.

Shaunna Thomas, executive director of Guardrails Alliance, a super PAC that pushes for safety regulations around AI, said she sees a “huge opportunity” for a broad Democratic coalition when it comes to oversight of big technology companies.

“There’s a broad mandate here for oversight, which should include things like existential issues of human safety and also the more imminent major harms or potential harms in the forms of economic shocks,” she said.

The heightened scrutiny certainly won’t come as a shock to the AI world or the crypto industry. Crypto sources said they are expecting to see a stark change in their efforts on Capitol Hill under a Warren-led Banking Committee.

The cryptocurrency regulatory bill that stalled before the elections, the CLARITY Act, is all but dead, said Kristin Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute, a crypto advocacy organization. Any action on a new bill in Congress is not likely to come until 2029 or 2030, she said.

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who may be the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has been pretty hostile, and so I don’t think that they’re going to come up with a product that is workable for the industry,” Smith said. “Given where President Trump is on crypto policy, I’m just not optimistic that the House and Senate will pass a product that you know is workable for President Trump.”

But, she said, crypto groups plan to continue “educating” Warren and other committee members.

Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who has long been among Senate Democrats most friendly to the industry, hinted to reporters on Thursday that there’s bad blood between Senate Democrats and the industry after crypto groups spent $63 million against Sherrod Brown’s bid for Senate in Ohio.

Brown won, and while it is not yet known what committees he will land on, he is likely to play a significant role as a past Banking Committee chair and as a Democrat who succeeded in a red state. Brown also previously served on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees one of the federal agencies that regulates crypto, and he has floated playing a larger role on the panel.

Gallego echoed Smith’s point that crypto legislation is unlikely to pass during the 120th Congress.

“I was very clear with them when they broke off negotiations that the best deal they were going to get was in September and that the next deal was going to be very, very hard,” Gallego said.

And many Democratic lawmakers have expressed interest in using their majority to probe Trump’s ties to the industry, a person familiar with those conversations told The Washington Sun.

Smith said the industry has been anticipating that oversight and is still working out how to respond. Crypto groups now know they can’t ignore Democrats’ concerns about Trump’s ties to the industry in the future.

“This is a conversation that’s happening across the industry right now as to what’s the best way to proceed,” Smith said. “We want to make sure that the infrastructure and the industry is separate from the business dealings of the president.”

Avani Kalra is a reporter at The Washington Sun and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.