The Trump administration has ended potential enforcement actions against dozens of tech firms and 165 corporations overall, delivering on promises to end the alleged "weaponization" of the federal government, a report by nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said.
"In six months, the Trump administration has already withdrawn or halted enforcement actions against 165 corporations of all types—and one in four of the corporations benefiting from halted or dropped enforcement is from the technology sector, which has spent $1.2 billion on political influence during and since the 2024 elections," the report published on Wednesday said. The political spending includes $352 million that "is attributable to Elon Musk."
At the beginning of Trump's second term, there were at least 104 tech companies facing at least 142 federal investigations and enforcement actions, Public Citizen reported. The Trump administration has halted or withdrawn about one-third of the "targeted investigations into suspected misconduct and enforcement actions against technology corporations... So far, 47 enforcement actions (against 45 tech corporations) have been withdrawn or halted (38 withdrawn, nine halted)," the report said.
Separately, Axios reported today that the White House "created a scorecard that rates 553 companies and trade associations on how hard they worked to support and promote President Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill.'" The internal spreadsheet ranking companies' loyalty to the White House "helps us see who really goes out and helps vs. those who just come in and pay lip service," a senior White House official told Axios.
The spreadsheet reportedly ranks organizations' support as strong, moderate, or low. It gives senior aides "data to consult when considering corporate requests... Axios has learned that 'examples of good partners' on the White House list include Uber, DoorDash, United, Delta, AT&T, Cisco, Airlines for America, and the Steel Manufacturers Association," the report said.
We contacted the White House today and will update the story if it provides any comment.
Ending “weaponization”
Public Citizen wrote that "President Donald Trump spent much of his 2024 presidential campaign claiming his prosecution by multiple authorities and subsequent conviction for his crimes are unfair 'weaponization' of law enforcement. Corporate executives in the technology sector, eager to curry favor, seized on the talking point. They similarly cast powerful corporations accused of violating laws that protect consumers, workers, investors, and the public as victims of 'weaponized' enforcement."
The Trump administration acted quickly to end this alleged weaponization, Public Citizen wrote:
When Trump took office, the corporate campaign to discredit law enforcement that protects the public and holds the powerful accountable culminated in the day one executive order "Ending Weaponization of the Federal Government," which explicitly ties enforcement against Trump and January 6 rioters to enforcement against corporate lawbreaking...
Since then, the Trump White House has exerted unprecedented authority over statutorily independent enforcement agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and has essentially eliminated the half-century policy of the Justice Department's independence from the White House.
The elimination of agency independence means enforcement investigations and lawsuits will not proceed if President Trump wants to kill them, and that agency officials who resist White House orders will be removed.
Twenty-three enforcement actions against cryptocurrency corporations and 11 against financial technology firms have been dropped or halted under Trump, the report said. Tech companies that have had investigations stopped include Activision, Binance, Coinbase, eBay, HP, Juniper, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, the report said.
There are still numerous pending investigations and lawsuits against tech companies that the Trump administration hasn't ended, at least not yet. Companies investigated by the Biden administration and which are now "poised to exploit their ties with the Trump administration include Amazon, Google, Meta, OpenAI, and corporations headed by Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink)," the report said. Public Citizen also published a spreadsheet containing information on active cases and those that have been ended.
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