An Abundance of Techno-Optimism

The latest pro-Abundance group’s alignment with AI and tech interests is nothing new.

Silicon Valley is continuing its efforts to regain a hold over Democratic Party policymaking. We at the Revolving Door Project have documented Big Tech’s funding of the smattering of Abundance-oriented policy groups that have cropped up in recent years. Next American Era is the latest such group. 

Per Axios’ reporting, Next American Era will be led by former Congresswoman Cheri Bustos and push “the same principles as the Abundance movement.” Bustos represents yet another notch in Silicon Valley’s belt. After leaving Congress in 2023, Bustos became a lobbyist with Mercury Public Affairs where her clients included major tech companies OpenAI and Oracle, as well as the crypto industry-aligned Solana Policy Institute. 

As my colleague Henry laid out, Bustos’ leadership is indicative of the alignment between the tech world’s interests and the project of Abundance, but she’s not the only one. As we wrote last year, Abundance author Ezra Klein has repeatedly stressed the synergy between Abundance and techno-optimism. In fact, Abundance-oriented writers and groups often make this connection, suggesting that an abundance agenda is the means to more data centers, more AI, and a greater reliance on technology.

There’s often great pushback when critics point out that the Abundance Agenda seems to mean a boon for the AI, datacenters, and their BigTech backers, so it’s best to hear it directly from the abundists themselves: 

Derek Thompson, Co-Author of Abundance

• On Reid Hoffman’s Possible podcast, Thompson stressed the need for data center construction as a means for permitting reform.
  • Thompson: “So I think it’s very important to do a lot of data-center citing and construction in the U.S. and among friendly countries. And that means, frankly, having a different attitude toward energy permitting. It’s really depressing to me that the President and the White House are trying to gut the Inflation Reduction Act. Because, in our book, one thing that we say about the energy demands of AI is that hopefully AI’s energy demands can be the horse that pulls the cart of permitting reform for clean energy.”
    • Hoffman, who “sends everyone a copy of Abundance,” was recently revealed to have emailed with Jeffrey Epstein for years after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prositution and visited Epstein’s island in 2014. Hoffman is also a longtime friend and business partner of Palantir CEO and Trump-backer Peter Thiel.
• Thompson referred to himself as a member of the “tech left.”
• Thompson tweeted, “Abundance requires innovation. Innovation begins with science. But scientific funding in the U.S. is broken—it’s too slow, risk-averse, and old. I wrote about a surprising coalition of tech founders and star scientists who are trying to fix it.” 

Ezra Klein, Co-Author of Abundance

• To Scott Galloway on the Prof G Pod, Klein said “one of the aims of the book is to repair what we think of as a dysfunctional relationship that has emerged between liberals and technology.”
  • He adds that “There is a tendency to put technology, I think practically after 2016, it’s run by a bunch of oligarchic billionaires, there’s a ton of, certainly in the liberal mind, disinformation, and propaganda on Facebook, liberals sort of turn on technology. But there’s a lot you just can’t solve without technology.”
• To Chris Hayes on Why is this happening, Klein said “And this is one of the, you know, the book is operating on a lot of levels, but one of levels is kind of like ideological vibes, I would almost call it. I think the relationship between, you know, liberals or Democrats or something and technology has become dysfunctional.”
• On Pod Save America, Klein framed the dynamic as a “question of what is your relationship to technology, what is your relationship to what is coming, is it fundamentally optimistic[?]”
• On Bari Weiss’ Honestly, he stated “I think we think that the relationship, the politics around technology have become highly dysfunctional”
• Discussing how the book came about with Thompson on his Plain English podcast Klein declared “I felt progressives had developed a dysfunctional relationship with technology.” Which had resulted in “the left, in its anger at these [Big Tech] companies began sort of giving up on technology.”
• On the Long Now podcast, Klein said: “And one of the core views of the book, which we’ve been talking a bit less about on the trail, is that progressivism needs to put technology much more at the center of its vision of change because the problems it seeks to solve cannot be solved except by technology in many cases.”

Foundation for American Innovation

• When testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee, FAI Director of Energy & Infrastructure Policy Thomas Hochman said, “We need the power and the infrastructure for data centers that will decide who leads in artificial intelligence” and criticized the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process as having “constrained” that buildout.
• FAI Blog The Last Great Electrical Buildout and Our Future: “Data centers are already around 4 percent of U.S. electricity use and could more than double their consumption by 2030. If we respond to the boom as a reason to build and scale the technologies of the future, we can turn data centers into the anchors of a much bigger, cheaper grid. […] To get there, we’ll need to make thoughtful policy choices. We’ll need to clear the permitting logjam for transmission and new generation, so projects can be approved in months, not decades.”
• FAI blog Reacting to the AI Action Plan praised Trump’s AI agenda, saying: “From expedited environmental permitting for data center and energy projects, to a framework for unlocking federal lands in regions that can support large AI clusters, the Action Plan reflects many of the recommendations developed by FAI’s director of infrastructure policy, Thomas Hochman. In turn, the administration is activating every tool available to shore-up grid resilience and enable the all-of-the-above energy build-out needed to match AI’s unprecedented projected demand.”

Institute for Progress

• IFP blog Preparing for Launch: “More broadly, the artificial intelligence of the future could catalyze a new golden age of growth and abundance.”
• IFP piece Compute in America: A Policy Playbook- How to rapidly build gigawatt-scale AI clusters in the United States: “Given this reality, the appropriate federal policy is an “all of the above” energy abundance strategy that lowers the costs associated with investments in all energy types and enables individual companies to take risks on the technologies that align with their preferences.”
• IFP paper An Action Plan for American Leadership in AI: “Maintaining American leadership in AI will require infrastructure projects at a scale this country has not seen in decades. We must build many gigawatt-scale (GW) clusters, each requiring the energy-equivalent of multiple nuclear power plants. To achieve this, US policymakers must unleash America’s industrial capacity. They must radically reduce timelines for environmental permitting, and help developers take on the technical risks involved in an “all of the above” energy strategy, including scaling next-generation energy technologies such as small modular reactors and enhanced geothermal.
• IFP President Samuel Hammond testified before the US House Science, Space, and Tech Committee: “Tearing down the regulation and bureaucracy inhibiting America’s capacity to innovate and build in the real world is thus imperative to rebooting our scientific and industrial prowess.This is especially true in a world where Artificial Intelligence automates large swaths of knowledge work, leaving physical industries like energy and manufacturing as the final determinant of a country’s competitive edge. […] Indeed, maximizing the full up-side from AI – and adapting to the sheer pace and volume of new economic activity – will likely require Congress to radically rethink and reconfigure many 20th century institutions, not just reform them on the margin.”
• IFP paper Building Baseload: Reforming Permitting for AI Energy Infrastructure: “Building the gas pipelines and electrical transmission lines needed to deliver power to data centers involves complex regulatory processes that could constrain AI’s growth. This memo examines the permitting, siting, and regulatory barriers facing these energy sources, and proposes solutions to overcome them. Understanding and reforming these barriers will be critical to meeting the AI industry’s ambitious timeline for expansion.”

Chamber of Progress

• Senior Advisor Gary Winslett wrote a blog titled Getting Serious about Supply Through an “Abundance & Affordability” Agenda: “If we build lots of clean energy we can meet the demand from new data centers, EV charging, electric heat pumps, and more. We can build the kind of world we want. We can make America even greater than it already is. To do that, we need Abundance.”
• In a blog praising Ruben Gallego’s energy plan, Winslett wrote: “Electricity demand is surging after nearly two decades of stagnation. Between the electricity needed for more AC, more electric vehicles, clean tech manufacturing, data centers, and general economic growth, we’re looking at demand increases of 2-3 percent annually for the foreseeable future. We can either meet that demand with abundant, affordable, all-of-the-above energy policy or we can fail the American people.”
  • “All-of-the-above energy policy” is a centrist and industry euphemism for the continued support and buildout of oil and natural gas infrastructure in addition to renewables.

Derek Kaufman, Founder and CEO of Inclusive Abundance

• Inclusive Abundance published an Abundance Landscape Analysis that listed “AI energy needs” as an opportunity area for abundance, calling for collaboration to “build that energy infrastructure here in the US.” 
• On an IA blog, Kaufman said: “Abundance envisions a future defined by more government effectiveness, more technological progress, and more enabling infrastructure. But we have to choose this path.“ 
• Kaufman tweeted: “The Inclusive Abundance Initiative proudly joins @americans4ri, @scientistsorg, and others in endorsing increased funding for @NIST to bolster government capacity in #AI @Inclsvabundance.”

John Arnold, Abundance Funder 

• Funded Vox’s “The Case for Growth” vertical that launched in December 2025
  • An early piece, Breaking free of zero-sum thinking will make America a wealthier county by Bryan Walsh stated, “If you’re convinced the pie is fixed, you’ll resist immigration, block new housing, and treat technological progress as a threat rather than a source of abundance — even when those are exactly the changes that would create more opportunity for everyone. In a genuinely stagnant, low-growth world, this might be rational. But we are on the cusp of technologies — from AI to cheap clean energy — that could dramatically increase the size of the pie.”

Breakthrough Institute

• Executive Director Alex Trembath and Josh Smith of the Abundance Institute co-wrote a blog titled Abundance, Not Additionality, Will Meet the Energy Demands of AI

As these groups and individuals continue to jockey for influence over Democratic policy making, it’s important to remember who stands to benefit from their proposed reforms: AI companies, data centers, and other Big Tech firms that want less regulatory scrutiny.