GeneralBig Tech bent the knee for Trump in 2025Tech companies may have lost their moral standing, but at least they added shareholder value.Devindra HardawarSenior EditorWed, December 17, 2025 at 2:00 PM UTCSure, we've seen millions poured into lobbying and other means of influence during every presidency, but the last two years set a whole new bar.Business leaders, including those from almost every Big Tech company, stepped over themselves to prove fealty to Donald Trump's second administration.It's easy to see why: Their kowtowing was meant to secure regulatory favors, gain tax and tariff advantages and avoid Trump's ire.
Ultimately, it was all in the service of appeasing their shareholders.Why else would Apple CEO Tim Cook, someone who typically cultivates a progressive image, hand deliver a gold plaque to the President of the United States?Before we leave 2025 behind, it's worth documenting the many ways tech companies and leaders debased themselves for political favor with the Trump administration.Alphabet (Google)Google dropped diversity recruitment goals in February, following Trump’s executive orders dismantling DEI programs in the federal government.Google also changed its AI principles to allow AI in weapons and surveillance, a move that is in line with the relaxed artificial intelligence regulation the Trump administration would later adopt for its AI Action Plan.
To the chagrin of geographers everywhere, the company also replaced the Gulf of Mexico in Google Maps with "Gulf of America," following Trump's executive order.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdditionally, Alphabet agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle Donald Trump's lawsuit against YouTube, following the suspension of his YouTube accounts after the January 6th riot.Trump will receive $22 million, while another $2.5 million of the settlement will be paid out to additional plaintiffs who were part of the class action — which is to say, other rioters involved in the storming of the Capitol.Joining plenty of other tech companies, Google donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration, and it’s also contributing to the cost of Trump’s reported $300 million White House ballroom.AmazonIn August, Amazon Web Services said it would provide up to $1 billion in credits to the Trump administration through 2028.Those credits can be put towards AWS cloud services, training and certification and direct contracts.Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also did his fair share to support Trump: He donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration, and since purchasing in 2013 he pushed the paper to the right.
This year, Bezos declared that the opinion pages would be devoted to the support and defense of “personal liberties” and “free markets.” He added, “We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others." To that end, the also hired three new conservative columnists.Bezos reportedly also blocked his paper from endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.
We’ll cover other topics too…— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 26, 2025Amazon, too, is contributing to Trump's $300 million White House ballroom.The , unsurprisingly, was one of the first major publications to praise Trump’s ballroom.AppleApple relied on big numbers and flashy trinkets to ingratiate itself to the Trump administration.In February, it said it planned to invest $500 billion into the US economy over the next four years.
While that sounds impressive, Apple previously announced another $430 billion multi-year investment for the US in 2021.In a potential bid to avoid the administration’s volatile tariff plans, Apple also said it would invest another $100 billion into the US in August.AdvertisementAdvertisementTim Cook personally donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund, Cook's first political donation since 2017.At that August event, he also gave Donald Trump a now infamous gold statue for being a special little guy.Additionally, Apple followed in Google’s footsteps by replacing the Gulf of Mexico in Apple Maps with the “Gulf of America.” The company is also chipping in for Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom.MetaMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasted no time trying to get into Trump’s good graces, perhaps to erase his previous statement that the President should be “held responsible for his words” for inciting the January 6 Capitol riot.
On top of donating $1 million to Trump's inauguration, Meta announced that it would be getting rid of third-party fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram on January 7.Instead, it's relying on community notes similar to X.Meta also ended its DEI initiatives and changed its hate speech rules to allow for calling LGBTQ people “mentally ill.”"We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words such as 'weird,'" reads the company’s updated policy.AdvertisementAdvertisementEven Zuckerberg’s charity, which he runs alongside his wife, bowed to Trump.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ended its diversity programs and stopped providing “social advocacy funding,” which supported immigration and racial equity efforts.According to , the charity’s website removed every reference to diversity or promoting scientific research from underrepresented groups.Similar to Google, Meta said it will pay Donald Trump $25 million to settle his lawsuit related to his Facebook suspension after the January 6 riot.And yes, Meta is also contributing to Trump's $300 million White House ballroom.MicrosoftMicrosoft contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund.
Previously, it donated $500,000 to Biden's fund and the same amount for Trump's first term.It’s also contributing to Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom.Similar to Amazon, Microsoft also offered up to $3.1 billion worth of services to the Trump administration as part of the American-centric “OneGov” strategy.That includes discounts for Microsoft 365, Azure cloud services and cybersecurity tools.
Copilot AI will also be discounted to government agencies, and it’ll be completely free for a year for agencies subscribing to Microsoft G5 service.Elon Musk (X, SpaceX, Tesla)Elon Musk was by far the biggest booster for Trump in the business world.He spent a whopping total of $277 million to back Trump and other candidates in 2024, including $239 million to America PAC, his super PAC focused on securing votes for Trump and other Republicans.AdvertisementAdvertisementMusk went so far as to offer $1 million to people who said they would vote for Trump, a move that the Justice Department warned might be illegal.Wisconsin's Attorney General challenged Musk's ploy but the state's Supreme Court declined to hear a case on the matter, thereby giving Musk leeway to award two $1 million checks to voters.
Musk's team edited a video of one of the recipients to remove her admission that she was paid "to vote."He also joked that he could be jailed if Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, which could be referencing potential election fraud, his penchant for busting unions, national security concerns from his uncomfortably close relationship with Vladimir Putin or any number of potential crimes.Elon Musk spearheaded DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), an unelected position from which he was given nearly unprecedented federal oversight.Once installed he hired his techie acolytes to chip away at government budgets and staffs.For the first few weeks of the second Trump administration, it appeared as if Musk had unfettered power to manipulate the government.And let's not forget, while leading DOGE, the world's richest man also destroyed USAID, the world's largest food aid provider, for no apparent reason other than cruelty.AdvertisementAdvertisementAfter purchasing Twitter in 2022 and renaming it "X," Musk has also transformed Twitter into a Trump-friendly social network focused on “free speech.” He reinstated Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned after the January 6 Capitol riot, and he also paid Trump around $10 million to settle his lawsuit over being kicked off the platform.
X is now a platform that amplifies far-right extremists, treats the inclusive term “cisgender” as a slur and doesn’t punish users for deadnaming and misgendering trans people.What about the rest?This is by no means an exhaustive documenting of every single tech tycoon that has bent the knee.NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, for instance, told Joe Rogan in an interview that “everything that [Trump] thinks through is very practical and very common sense, and, you know, it's very logical.” According to , Huang added that Trump "wants to make sure that that the important, critical technology of our nation is built in United States, and that we re-industrialize and get good at manufacturing again, because it's important for jobs." It’s also worth remembering that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison joined President Trump onstage in announcing Stargate — “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history.” The two were joined by Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who called the moment the “beginning of a golden age.” The next day, Altman posted on X that he believed Trump “will be incredible for the country in many ways!”Ellison’s son David is the CEO of Skydance, and has infamously been rebuilding Paramount with Bari Weiss since the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media was approved this year.The list of major tech players bowing to Trump only grows from here, and putting the bulk of the transactions in one place should serve to remind us how closely tied Big Tech is with American (and global) politics.
