Dean Ball, the author of Trump’s industry-favored AI Action Plan, recently left his White House position to work for a thinktank aligned with the centrist “Abundance” movement and which helped advise Project 2025, the radical blueprint to dismantle federal regulation.
Among Ball’s new gigs is a senior fellow position at the Foundation for American Innovation, a right-leaning think tank that advocates for tech deregulation. Last month, the foundation, which served on Project 2025’s advisory board, hosted a conference that featured Abundance co-authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Ball is also a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank dedicated to “liberty, free enterprise, national greatness.”
In a recent blog post for the foundation, Ball stated that federal preemption of state AI rules — a policy so unpopular it was stripped from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — needs to be the “starting point” for those on both sides of the debate on whether and how to regulate AI. This preemption, which would strip states of their ability to govern the new technology, is supported by the Abundance Institute, a nonprofit advocating for widespread deregulation.
The foundation has also received financial support from the same right-wing nonprofits that have funded dark money groups urging the Supreme Court to gut consumer protections.
The Sarah Scaife Foundation, a conservative dark money group, gave the Foundation for American Innovation $350,000 in 2023. In 2022 and 2023, the foundation received another $65,000 from the Bradley Impact Fund, a nonprofit linked to the conservative Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Michael Kratsios, Trump’s head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, previously served on the Foundation for American Innovation’s board. Politico reports that the Foundation has been a “major force” directing White House AI policy. Earlier this year, the Office of Management and Budget and the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued directives that mirrored recommendations from the foundation.
The foundation has zeroed in on AI regulations, filing amicus briefs and comment letters to regulators and lawmakers urging officials to slash regulations preventing AI domination. Earlier this month, the foundation filed an amicus brief with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals urging the judges to gut copyright laws. And last month, the foundation sent a letter to lawmakers urging them to eviscerate the National Environmental Policy Act and roll back Clean Water Act provisions.
“Unfortunately, today's permitting system was designed for a different era. While laws like the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) were written with good intentions, they have evolved into procedural gauntlets,” the group wrote in a letter to both Republican and Democratic Party leaders.
