Most of Donald Trump’s supporters aren’t shopping for Huge Tech’s makes an attempt to suck as much as the president, in keeping with nationwide ballot outcomes completely obtained by The Submit.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and different Huge Tech bosses have launched a attraction offensive since Trump gained the White Home – flocking to his January inauguration, making journeys to the Oval Workplace and scrapping fact-checking operations that had been accused of anti-conservative censorship.
Nonetheless, 54% of Trump voters – and 70% of voters general – consider the strikes are a part of a cynical ploy to sway the president to embrace Huge Tech coverage positions, in keeping with a survey carried out by the watchdog group Tech Oversight Undertaking and Public Coverage Polling.
So far as the tech CEOs themselves, Zuckerberg was deemed probably the most unlikeable, with 63% of Trump voters disapproving of him, versus 74% of voters general.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos drew dislikes from 53% of Trump voters versus 67% general.
Google’s Pichai drew a 52% disapproval score from Trump voters (55% general), whereas OpenAI’s Sam Altman bought 34% (50% general) and Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner 44% dislikes (33% general), in keeping with the ballot.
“Not only are Americans consistently distrustful of Big Tech CEOs, but even Trump voters reject their new MAGA act – and in fact support policies like a Big Tech Tax to rein them in,” mentioned Sacha Haworth, govt director of the Tech Oversight Undertaking.
On the subject of synthetic intelligence, solely 7% of respondents mentioned they belief Huge Tech CEOs to make selections on insurance policies more likely to have an effect on the on a regular basis lives of People, whereas 52% of respondents mentioned they trusted federal and state governments to take the lead on the problem.
In response to the survey, 72% of respondents help the idea of a “Big Tech tax” aimed toward guaranteeing the businesses pay their fair proportion for initiatives that affect the general public, comparable to elevated pressure on energy grids from energy-guzzling AI information facilities.
60% of Republicans help a Huge Tech tax whereas simply 21% are towards it. Moreover, 86% of Democrats and 70% of independents have been in favor.
Huge Tech’s efforts to sway Trump have intensified throughout a time by which the businesses are scrambling to form federal AI rules – and as a number of, together with Google, Meta and Amazon, face antitrust lawsuits and congressional investigations with the potential to upend their companies.
“Holding Big Tech companies accountable continues to be a political winner, and Congress should take note that the American people overwhelmingly support an agenda that stops Silicon Valley executives who are recklessly endangering kids, crushing small and innovative businesses, and skyrocketing home energy costs on families,” Haworth added.
Trump has appointed antitrust hawks to steer key businesses — together with Gail Slater because the DOJ’s antitrust chief and Andrew Ferguson as chair of the Federal Commerce Fee.
The survey was carried out on June 3and 4 and polled a complete of 541 voters.
