Altman and Amodei Urge UN Security Council on AI Safeguards

Public pension funds hold roughly nine trillion dollars, creating a lucrative target for investment advisers. The SEC has proposed ending a nearly twenty-year-old rule that bars those advisers from managing such funds for two years after making political donations to the officials who oversee them. The agency argues the restriction imposes unnecessary compliance costs and chills small political contributions. Critics counter that removing the barrier would reopen avenues for the pay-to-play arrangements that surfaced in multiple states during the 2000s. Historical cases involved Apollo, Carlyle, and Quadrangle, each of which reached settlements after directing payments or gifts to secure billions in pension commitments. Some of those investments later produced losses for retirees. The proposal now faces a sixty-day public comment period, during which the agency will weigh whether existing adviser rules suffice to deter similar conduct.