According to engadget, throughout 2025, Big Tech companies engaged in an unprecedented and expensive campaign to appease Donald Trump’s second administration. Google dropped its diversity recruitment goals in February, changed its AI principles to allow for weapons and surveillance use, and paid $24.5 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit over his YouTube suspension. Apple CEO Tim Cook personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and presented the president with a gold statue, while Apple pledged hundreds of billions in new U.S. investments. Meta donated $1 million, removed third-party fact-checkers, altered hate speech policies, and settled a Trump lawsuit for $25 million. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services offered billions in service credits to the government, and Elon Musk spent $277 million backing Trump and was installed in a powerful, unelected federal oversight role called DOGE.
The Price of Peace
Look, this wasn’t subtle. It was a wholesale, public, and incredibly costly realignment. The sheer scale of the financial commitments is staggering—we’re talking about legal settlements totaling nearly $60 million just to Trump himself, inauguration donations in the millions from each CEO, and service credit offers from Amazon and Microsoft that amount to over $4 billion. That’s not lobbying. That’s tribute. And here’s the thing: it worked. The regulatory pressure that defined the late 2010s and early 2020s evaporated almost overnight, replaced by a new era of “cooperation” that looked an awful lot like capitulation. Google and Apple even renamed the Gulf of Mexico on their maps to “Gulf of America,” a purely symbolic but deeply revealing act of fealty.
A Shift in Core Values
But the money might be less disturbing than the ideological backflips. These companies didn’t just open their wallets; they rewrote their own rulebooks. Meta’s decision to end third-party fact-checking and allow claims that LGBTQ people are “mentally ill” is a 180-degree turn from its previous stance. Google dismantling its AI principles that once prohibited use in weapons? That’s a fundamental change to its ethical core, all to align with an anticipated deregulatory push from the White House. It proves that for these firms, stated values are just another adjustable business lever, to be dialed up or down based on who’s in power. When your survival depends on government contracts and avoiding antitrust wrath, principles become a luxury you can’t afford.
Musk’s Unprecedented Power Grab
Elon Musk’s role was in a league of its own, though. While others were writing checks, Musk was effectively handed the keys to parts of the federal government. His DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) role was something new—a tech billionaire with a fanatical fanbase given a mandate to “streamline” (read: dismantle) agencies. Destroying USAID, the world’s largest food aid provider, served no practical purpose. It was a flex. A demonstration of raw, unchecked power. Combined with his transformation of X into a far-right megaphone and his hundreds of millions in election spending, Musk moved from being a disruptive businessman to a central, unearthed pillar of Trump’s political infrastructure. That’s a terrifying concentration of influence.
The New Political-Industrial Complex
So what does this mean long-term? We’ve officially entered an era where tech isn’t just influenced by politics—it’s a primary financier and operational partner of a specific political project. The lobbying numbers are one thing, but direct settlements, policy changes, and infrastructure deals like the Stargate AI project with Sam Altman and Larry Ellison are something else entirely. It creates a feedback loop: tech enables and funds the administration, which passes favorable policies and grants access, which makes the tech companies more powerful and wealthy. It’s a merger of Silicon Valley and Washington that sidelines traditional checks and balances. And after seeing the billions on the table and the rules rewritten in 2025, what CEO in their right mind would ever openly oppose this administration again? The knee-bending isn’t over; it’s just become standard operating procedure.
