Trump Puts Big Tech Above the Law Amid Industry’s Billion-Dollar Influence Campaign
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration has already dropped or halted one third of targeted enforcement actions against technology corporations in its first six months in office, a new report from Public Citizen found. The retreat from enforcement follows massive spending by the tech corporations, their executives, and their investors during the 2024 election cycle and beyond, and comes amidst ongoing political gifts to Trump’s inauguration, super PACs, and Trump’s private businesses.
“The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking,” said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the report. “To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit – especially if you are an ally of the administration. For insiders, corporate crime pays.”
At the beginning of Trump’s second term, at least 104 technology sector corporations faced at least 143 federal investigations and enforcement actions. So far, 47 of those enforcement actions (against 45 tech corporations) have been withdrawn or halted (38 withdrawn, nine halted). The corporations benefiting from halted or withdrawn federal enforcement include eBay, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and numerous cryptocurrency and financial technology corporations.
Tech corporations facing enforcement, their executives, and their investors have collectively spent $1.2 billion, including:
- $863 million in political spending, primarily to allocated to super PACs;
- $222 million in payments to Trump’s businesses;
- $76 million in lobbying spending; and
- $25 million in donations to Trump’s inauguration.
Tech corporations facing ongoing federal investigations and enforcement lawsuits that are at risk of being dropped or weakened following the industry’s influence efforts include Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Google, Meta, OpenAI, Snap, Uber, Zoom, and Musk-helmed corporations The Boring Company, Neuralink, SpaceX, Tesla, X, and xAI.
“Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech’s wrongdoing,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen. “For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech’s global agenda.”