Silicon Valley pours out lobbying, cash & flattery to win over Trump

Government relations shops for Nvidia Corp, OpenAI Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and other firms are hard at work trying to curry better align with the president. Altogether, the biggest tech and AI companies spent $109 million on lobbying last year, topping $100 million for the first time, according to Bloomberg News.

 

viewed by public disclosures, have added big Trump-friendly advocates to their ranks in the past couple. Trump’s second term was prominent seats at his inauguration and never left his side, donning expensive tuxes to fete Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, headlining a White House dinner and leadership and showing up for countless private meetings.

 

Harking back to business moguls of the early 20th century, tech leaders like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg even bought up DC real estate.

 

“For many tech industry leaders, they adopted a strategy of engagement as both an offensive and defensive measure,” said Justin Sayfie, a lobbyist at Trump-allied Ballard Partners, which counts Amazon.com Inc, trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association and TikTok among clients. “From the president’s perspective, it’s the most America First policy imaginable to help grow the home-grown American tech companies.”

 

Meta led all tech companies in lobbying expenditures in 2025 with a new peak of more than $26 million to hold its place among the biggest spenders in Washington. Behind Meta were Amazon with more than $17 million and Alphabet Inc’s Google at over $13 million, though Amazon saw a slight decrease from the previous year.