The Hill has just published a study carried out by OpenSecrets, which lifts the veil on the record sums spent by the tech giants to maintain their lobbying. This is particularly the case for Meta and Amazon, which respectively spent $20.1 and $20.3 million to put pressure on major global institutions.
Amazon spent $20.3 million on lobbying
It must be recognized that the subjects concerning the tech giants are increasingly present in the United States Congress or the European Commission. Their abuse of a dominant position or their anti-competitive behavior are regularly discussed. For try to tip the balance when the laws are passed, they rely on their lobbying actions.
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Amazon is therefore the champion in this area: the American giant has spent around 20.3 million dollars for this purpose. For its part, Meta disbursed $20.1 million, according to documents submitted to Congress on Thursday, January 20. It appears that the two tech giants increased their lobbying spending by around 7% compared to 2020. Meta and Amazon have gone all out to try to pressure lawmakers to drop bills aimed at reducing their power.
Major US tech companies are currently trying to lobby for one particular bill. This is the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. In its current version, this text could prevent “dominant companies”, which includes Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta, to give preference to their own products or discriminate against their rivals on their platforms.
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai personally met with senators to ask them to oppose this project. Since then, senators have said they are ready to make changes that would be favorable to the industry… Proof of the effectiveness of the lobbying of the American giants. Together, Amazon and Meta have contracted dozens of companies to deploy lobbyists with close ties to congressional leaders and Biden administration officials.
For its part, Google spent $ 9.6 million on lobbying in 2021. This is not an annual record for the Mountain View firm, but it represents an increase of 27% compared to 2020. At Apple, lobbying spending has even gone down compared to last year: 6.5 million dollars were allocated to lobbying actions, against approximately 6.7 million dollars in 2020. This does not prevent the technological giants from remaining the first lobbyists.