Two Democratic senators sent a letter to leaders of Big Tech companies who donated to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, accusing them of trying to “buy favor” with the incoming administration.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Michael Bennett (D-CO) sent a letter to the leaders of Amazon, Apple, Google, OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and Uber, according to Fox News Digital, which obtained a copy of the letter.
The letter, which was also posted on X by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, started by highlighting the “million-dollar gifts to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund” and accused the recipients of trying to gain favorable treatment with the incoming president.
In the two months since the election, Big Tech companies, including OpenAI, have made million-dollar gifts to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund in what appears to be an effort to influence and sway the actions and policies of the incoming administration. Specifically, on December 13th, 2024, reporting confirmed your intention to personally donate $1 million to the inaugural fund.
funny, they never sent me one of these for contributing to democrats... pic.twitter.com/xjpanXSb5D
— Sam Altman (@sama) January 17, 2025
The letter continues, noting that Big Tech companies have faced “increased scrutiny” from federal authorities and that “lawmakers in both parties have voiced support for regulating tech platforms.”
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“We are concerned that your company and other Big Tech donors are using your massive contributions to the inaugural fund to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration in an effort to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor,” the senators wrote.
The senators assert that “the industry’s efforts suggest that Big Tech companies are trying to curry favor and skirt the rules” and that without restrictions, these companies “will threaten consumer’s rights, run roughshod over workers, and squash competition while stifling innovation.”
The letter concludes by demanding answers to several questions, including how these companies decided to make the donations, which individuals made these decisions, whether they had any communication with the president-elect, and others.
This is clearly an intimidation tactic to target potential allies of the incoming Republican administration. As Altman pointed out in his post on X, he never received one of these letters when giving to Democrats. The reason why is obvious. The last thing Democrats want is high-profile tech leaders allying with their most feared political opponents.
But the hypocrisy goes even deeper. When Biden was set to take office, Amazon donated about $276,000, while Google and Microsoft gave $337,500 and $500,000, respectively. What do these companies have in common? That’s right, dear reader, they are Big Tech companies.
It goes even further than that.
Several other companies also shelled out some big bucks for Biden’s inauguration. Boeing, Pfizer, AT&T, Bank of America, Uber, Lockheed Martin, and Comcast gave a whopping $1 million each.
I wonder how many of these companies received handwringing letters from Sens. Warren and Bennett? I’m sure we don’t need to guess, do we?
The bottom line is that lawmakers have no business sticking their noses into private donations such as these – especially when it is clearly for partisan purposes.
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