Big Tech’s bet on Trump hasn’t yielded special – Business News
On Inauguration Day 2025, tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai secured front-row seats, their $1 million donations and Mar-a-Lago visits seemingly profitable in endearing themselves to the President that they had for years tried to censor.
Yet, months into his second time period, the hundreds of thousands they spent on Trump — together with billions pledged by OpenAI, Apple, and Meta for US investment (Zuckerberg even purchased a home in D.C. ) — hasn’t received them any favors. Big Tech now faces relentless antitrust scrutiny, with a spate of current stories suggesting their efforts to win over Trump have produced no actual advantages.
Meta is dealing with a swimsuit from the FTC over allegations the company’s acquisitions have given it monopolistic energy. Apple is contending with a swimsuit from the DOJ over issues it has created a monopoly within the smartphone market. Google is coping with fits from the DOJ over issues about monopolies in its advert tech and search companies.
Tech billionaires got prime real estate on the Inauguration — however that hasn’t translated to special therapy. Getty Images
“Zuckerberg pumped millions of dollars… and all he got was going to court,” one source with information of Trump’s considering on tech stated.
“They got nothing other than Inauguration seats,” the source added, noting that tech leaders opposed Trump’s most popular antitrust nominees to FTC and DOJ Antitrust — Andrew Ferguson, Gail Slater, and Mark Meador — but misplaced these battles. “The Facebook lawsuit is still going forward and now there are rumors swirling of a potential lawsuit against Apple.”
Steve Bannon, who I interviewed earlier this week, advised me these coveted inauguration seats have been about Trump flexing — not about owing Silicon Valley any favors.
“They were all sitting there thinking they own President Trump … it turned out President Trump started crushing them, whether in federal court or with other anti-trust, anti-trust efforts,” Bannon stated.
While tech leaders have ramped up their visits to the White House in current months, the aides who Trump works with day-in and day-out are nudging him to take on Big Tech after what they really feel was years of mistreatment.
“He was ready to make peace until we reminded him of the hundreds of millions they spent trying to silence him and run him out of office,” one of Trump’s tech advisors advised me.
Mark Zuckerberg went as far as to buy a home in Washington, D.C., to be close to the political motion. REUTERS
Trump’s group, sources advised me, at the moment are pushing for aggressive measures, together with a potential consent decree as half of an FTC deal that would pressure Meta to pay restitution to conservative customers and companies harmed by content material moderation that was ratcheted up dramatically during covid.
While Meta has made current efforts to rent more right-leaning staff and conservative Joel Kaplan just lately received a promotion to go of public coverage, it’s not enough, some say.
“You’re not going to fix this with Bush Republicans,” the MAGA advisor stated sharply.
Tim Cook’s efforts to win over Trump haven’t received him any favors. Getty Images
Mike Davis, a conservative legal strategist, echoed this sentiment, telling me “Meta spent $400 million chasing Trump out of office and subjected him to four years of unrelenting lawfare. If they want to regain trust, they need permanent solutions—restitution for censorship victims and mass hiring of Trump-aligned officials. It’ll take years and concrete steps, not empty promises.”
Conservatives aren’t simply targeted on previous grievances; they’re cautious of future threats.
“Meta censored doctors and scientists during COVID, potentially costing lives,” one other source advised me. “Now they’re trying to steal every copyright for their AI while pretending to make amends … they think they can steal data just like China because they say they want to compete with China.”
And within the back of many conservative’s minds is the popularity there could also be simply a small window to make the required adjustments.
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Bannon, whose “War Room” program shapes the MAGA agenda, stays adamant: “Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google—they all need to be broken up. Big Tech is the most dangerous force in the country… we have to go after them,” he stated in our interview.
Sources stated Big Tech’s current efforts to make up with the president don’t erase their long historical past of going after Trump. Getty Images
“All the oligarchs are progressive Democrats … they became MAGA at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the 5th of November when President Trump was declared the winner. That’s when they all had this Damascene moment,” he added.
And Bannon believes the second the political winds change, they’ll go back to the left.
And it’s not simply Trump they’ve to fret about. Even Trump’s probably successor, J.D. Vance, is reportedly more hawkish on antitrust points.
Vance has even praised Biden’s aggressive FTC Chair Lina Khan who made it her mission to interrupt up massive tech.
For now, the tech titans’ investments and gestures have purchased them little more than a front-row view of their own reckoning.
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