On Inauguration Day 2025, tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook dinner, 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.
But, months into his second time period, the thousands and thousands they spent on Trump — together with billions pledged by OpenAI, Apple, and Meta for US funding (Zuckerberg even purchased a home in D.C. ) — hasn’t received them any favors. Huge 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 go well with from the FTC over allegations the corporate’s acquisitions have given it monopolistic energy. Apple is contending with a go well with from the DOJ over considerations it has created a monopoly within the smartphone market. Google is coping with fits from the DOJ over considerations about monopolies in its advert tech and search companies.
“Zuckerberg pumped millions of dollars… and all he got was going to court,” one supply with data of Trump’s pondering on tech stated.
“They got nothing other than Inauguration seats,” the supply 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, instructed 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.
Whereas tech leaders have ramped up their visits to the White Home in current months, the aides who Trump works with day-in and day-out are nudging him to tackle Huge 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,” considered one of Trump’s tech advisors instructed me.
Trump’s workforce, sources instructed me, at the moment are pushing for aggressive measures, together with a possible consent decree as a part of an FTC deal that might drive Meta to pay restitution to conservative customers and companies harmed by content material moderation that was ratcheted up dramatically throughout covid.
Whereas Meta has made current efforts to rent extra right-leaning workers and conservative Joel Kaplan lately obtained a promotion to move of public coverage, it’s not sufficient, some say.
“You’re not going to fix this with Bush Republicans,” the MAGA advisor stated sharply.
Mike Davis, a conservative authorized 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 centered on previous grievances; they’re cautious of future threats.
“Meta censored doctors and scientists during COVID, potentially costing lives,” one other supply instructed 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 at the back of many conservative’s minds is the popularity there could also be only a small window to make the mandatory 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.
“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 return to the left.
And it’s not simply Trump they’ve to fret about. Even Trump’s possible successor, J.D. Vance, is reportedly extra 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 greater than a front-row view of their very own reckoning.
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