Trump Admin Has Dropped a Third of All Investigations Into Big Tech, Advocates Say
The report, published by the advocacy organization Public Citizen, notes that, at the start of Trump's second term, there were at least 104 tech companies facing at least 142 federal investigations and enforcement actions. As of August, 47 of the enforcement actions against 45 of those tech companies 'have been withdrawn or halted (38 withdrawn, nine halted).'
Companies that have had enforcement actions 'paused' or 'frozen' since the beginning of the year include big-name firms like Meta, PayPal, and Tesla. In many cases, enforcement actions have also been dismissed or withdrawn, including against prominent crypto companies like Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Kraken. The cryptocurrency industry was, notably, a big contributor to Trump's campaign last year.
Those same companies whose executives and investors have recently felt the regulatory heat ease off their backs made significant political financial contributions since the beginning of 2024, the bulk of which totals some $1.2 billion, according to Public Citizen's tally. Most of the contributions were given to the GOP, and some of them went directly to Trump (either to his businesses or his inauguration fund). The contributions were also made by the companies' executives and investors.
Humorously, the Public Citizen report includes an entire section on Elon Musk. Indeed, of the total political spending mentioned in the report, nearly half is attributable to Musk. The report points out that, among those executives who attended Trump's inauguration, Musk—who would go on to lead Trump's DOGE initiative and serve (for awhile, at least) as the president's 'first buddy'—is the CEO 'whose businesses face the most federal enforcement actions – at least 19 separate sets of allegations from at least nine federal agencies.'
Unfortunately for Musk, a lot of those cases remain up in the air. The report notes that, amidst the ongoing spats between the Tesla billionaire and the president, there continues to be 'uncertainty into what will come of the investigations and enforcement lawsuits against Musk's corporations.'
The loss of interest in tech company probes may be part of a broader trend of regulatory disinterest, as the report notes that the administration has 'withdrawn or halted enforcement actions against 165 corporations of all types' this year, including the aforementioned tech companies.
'This massive retreat from enforcement and dropping categories of cases involving corporate misconduct is something I've never seen before,' Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen's President's Office and the author of the report, told 404 Media. 'Many of these cases being dropped now originated in the first Trump administration. They were, correctly in my view, pursuing crypto scams.'
The report also dutifully notes that the 'existence of investigations and/or allegations of misconduct do not necessarily mean that any laws were broken, or that an enforcement action necessarily would have been brought under a different administration.' Gizmodo reached out to the Trump administration for comment.
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