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C.C. Wei committed TSMC to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) with goals of 100% renewable energy by 2040 (accelerated from 2050) and net-zero emissions by 2050. Wei stated: 'TSMC works closely with our supply chain partners and stakeholders to advance green initiatives and develop innovative energy-saving and carbon reduction technologies.'

TSMC announced formal SBTi commitment April 2025 with roadmap: peak emissions 2025, reduce to 2020 levels by 2030 with RE60 (60% renewable energy), achieve RE100 by 2040 (accelerated from 2050 after NGO pressure), net-zero by 2050. Launched GREEN Agreement requiring 50+ suppliers (90% of supply chain emissions) to reach 85% renewable energy in Taiwan and 100% overseas by 2030. 22 consecutive years in Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

The European Commission issued its first-ever Digital Markets Act fine, finding Meta's 'consent or pay' model violated DMA obligations to give consumers a choice of service using less personal data. Meta offered EU users of Facebook and Instagram only a binary choice between consenting to full data combination for personalized ads or paying a subscription. Internal documents revealed the model 'was never intended to comply' with the DMA, with Meta's own estimates predicting below 1% subscription uptake. The violation period ran from March to November 2024.

Paul Graham publicly criticized Palantir Technologies over its $30 million ImmigrationOS contract with ICE, urging programmers not to work for 'the company building the infrastructure of the police state.' He pressed a Palantir executive to commit not to build things that help the government violate the US constitution.

Attorney General filed lawsuit alleging Discord's flawed age verification allows children under 13 to bypass requirements, and that even with safety filters enabled, children were exposed to CSAM and predators.

In April 2025, former Y Combinator president Geoff Ralston launched the Safe Artificial Intelligence Fund (SAIF), specifically seeking startups that enhance AI safety, security, and responsible deployment. The fund writes $100,000 checks as SAFE notes with a $10M cap. Ralston explicitly stated he would not back fully autonomous weapons, saying 'There are certainly uses of AI which would (will) be unsafe: using the technology to create bioweapons, to manage conventional weapons without a human in the loop.' Additionally, YC has funded 152+ open source startups including Ollama (105K+ GitHub stars).

In 2025, Intel dramatically reduced its DEI language in corporate reports and removed diversity targets from SEC 10-K filings. This represented a major rollback from 2020 goals including achieving 40% women in technical roles and doubling women/underrepresented minorities in senior leadership by 2030. Intel had previously stated 'Diversity, equity, and inclusion have long been Intel's core values and are instrumental to driving innovation and delivering strong business growth.'

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by monopolizing markets for publisher ad servers (~90% share) and ad exchanges (~50% share), and violated Section 1 by illegally tying its products together. This was Google's second major antitrust loss, separate from the August 2024 search monopoly ruling. The DOJ sought divestiture of Google's ad exchange (AdX) and publisher ad server (DFP). Remedies trial scheduled for September 2025.

Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Apple 'willfully' failed to comply with previous injunctions in the Epic Games case. The judge found that Apple executives had lied and knowingly took an anti-competitive route to demonstrate compliance. She extended injunctions to prevent Apple from collecting fees from third-party storefronts and referred the case to the federal attorney's office for possible criminal contempt proceedings.

Patrick Collison appointed to Meta's board effective April 15, 2025. Appointment came as Meta rolled back fact-checking and DEI programs, donated $1M to Trump's inauguration, and settled lawsuit with Trump for $25M. Collison joins alongside Dina Powell McCormick, a former Trump advisor.

In April 2025, Anthropic published a threat intelligence report detailing multiple misuse cases of Claude detected in March 2025. The report documented: an 'influence-as-a-service' operation orchestrating over 100 coordinated social media bots; credential scraping and stuffing attempts targeting security camera systems; a recruitment fraud campaign targeting Eastern Europe; and a novice actor developing sophisticated malware. The proactive detection and transparent public disclosure demonstrated responsible AI safety monitoring and commitment to preventing harm.

In April 2025, New York state fined Block Inc. $40 million for anti-money laundering inadequacies and cryptocurrency compliance failures on its Cash App platform. The investigation found weak AML practices and inadequate monitoring of suspicious Bitcoin transactions. Block also separately agreed to pay $80 million to other state regulators for similar compliance deficiencies.

In April 2025, Google Cloud announced a partnership with the UAE Cyber Security Council to establish a cybersecurity center of excellence in Abu Dhabi. The agreement was announced with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE's National Security Advisor, and Ruth Porat, Alphabet's President and CIO. Google committed to 'significant investments in advanced cloud capabilities' in the UAE. Critics noted the partnership despite UAE's alleged involvement in supplying weapons and technology to Sudan's conflict.

Bank of Lithuania imposed €3.5 million fine, the largest ever from the Lithuanian regulator, after finding Revolut failed to adequately monitor customer relationships and transactions, 'not always properly identifying suspicious monetary operations or transactions.' The fine represented less than 0.5% of 2023 revenue. No confirmed money laundering was detected during investigation, but systematic monitoring deficiencies were identified.

In April 2025, security researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered an unreleased Waymo privacy policy page revealing plans to use interior camera data associated with rider identities for training generative AI models. The draft included opt-out language for riders. Waymo initially confirmed the feature was under development, but later denied using in-car footage for generative AI training, claiming the discovered text was inaccurate placeholder language. Each Waymo vehicle carries 29 external cameras, and the company's data retention policies for interior and exterior footage remain opaque.

Microsoft terminated multiple employees who protested the company's AI technology use by the Israeli military. In April 2025, software engineers Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal were fired after disrupting Microsoft's 50th anniversary event, where one called AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman a 'war profiteer.' In August 2025, four more employees (Anna Hattle, Riki Fameli, Nisreen Jaradat, Julius Shan) were fired for on-premises protests. Allegations claim Israel's Unit 8200 uses Microsoft Azure to store and analyze Palestinian phone calls for surveillance.

World Uyghur Congress filed complaints in French courts (April 7 and September 8, 2025) against Huawei France, Hikvision, and Dahua for complicity in crimes against humanity against Uyghurs. Charges include genocide, human trafficking, aggravated servitude, and concealment. Allegations state Huawei participated in developing innovative police laboratories in East Turkistan, testing systems for detecting Uyghurs in crowds. Supported by Don't Fund Russian Army NGO.

Oracle settled a PAGA lawsuit for $15.5 million after two former California sales employees alleged the company violated state wage laws for commissioned workers. Plaintiffs claimed Oracle retroactively increased quotas or decreased commission rates on past sales, 're-planned' employees to reduce already-earned commissions going back to the beginning of the fiscal year, and clawed back prior payments by withholding newly earned commissions. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015.

Revolut was fined a record €3.5 million by Lithuania's central bank for failures in anti-money laundering processes. Regulatory authorities found the neobank failed to implement adequate controls to prevent money laundering. This was the highest AML-related fine ever issued in Lithuania. Revolut has faced persistent compliance and fraud concerns.

In April 2025, Zomato laid off 500-600 employees from its Zomato Associate Accelerator Program without prior notice, giving only one month's severance. The layoffs followed the launch of 'Nugget', an AI platform handling 15 million monthly interactions and resolving 80% of queries without humans. Employees reported being dismissed for minor issues like being late by 28 minutes on average, with AI performance tracking ranking workers into tiers.

In April 2025, Adobe's Chief People Officer announced the company would 'discontinue' DEI hiring targets, ending 'aspirational representational goals' set in 2020. These had included doubling Black representation and increasing women in leadership to 30% by 2025. The company's Corporate Responsibility page was also removed from the website after Trump's January 2025 executive order targeting DEI.

Approximately 300 DeepMind employees in London sought to join the Communication Workers Union, citing concerns their AI technology is being used in Gaza conflict via Project Nimbus ($1.2B cloud contract with Israel). At least 5 employees resigned over military involvement and reversal of ethical commitments on AI for defense.

A Public Citizen report found Musk had direct business interest in over 70% of DOGE targets. On inauguration day, his companies faced $2.37 billion in potential liability from 65 regulatory actions across 11 agencies. DOGE then: fired FDA staff reviewing Neuralink, cut NHTSA staff that regulates Tesla autonomous vehicles, targeted the SEC investigating his Twitter stock purchase. DOJ dropped a SpaceX discrimination lawsuit. Starlink terminals were installed at GSA headquarters within days (normally takes months). The White House said Musk would self-police his own conflicts of interest.

Ericsson faced criticism in Sweden after removing all references to DEI from its 2024 annual report. The word 'DEI' appeared 0 times compared to 40+ times in 2023. Previous initiatives like 42 employee resource groups, gender diversity goals tied to executive compensation, and inclusive leadership training were absent. The company denied Trump administration influence, claiming changes were 'for greater clarity.'

Oracle removed all mentions of the word 'diversity' from its corporate communications. The company also withdrew promised scholarship funding to the Urban League. On September 25, 2024, Oracle had confirmed a $20,000 contribution to support Urban League's educational initiatives, but later withdrew following internal DEI policy shifts.

In early 2025, Anduril Industries took over the US Army's Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) program from Microsoft, a contract worth up to $22 billion to deliver approximately 120,000 augmented reality headsets to soldiers. The Army approved a legal action in April 2025 that effectively transferred Microsoft's contract to Anduril. This represents one of the largest military technology contracts in history and a major expansion of Anduril's defense portfolio into wearable military technology.

Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple announced in April 2025 that it has surpassed 60% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions from 2015 levels, on track for its Apple 2030 goal of 75% reduction and full carbon neutrality. Over 320 suppliers (95% of manufacturing spend) have transitioned to renewable energy.

While many tech companies rolled back DEI under Trump pressure, Wise implemented stronger governance structure across all 13 global DEI communities in 2025. Programs include Women Circles (speaker-led networking), Women in Product events, and investment in senior women and non-binary external community. Gender pay gap reduced from 19.54% to 14.54% mean, 18.4% to 12.67% median.

Starling Bank reported progress on gender diversity: over a third of new hires between April 2024 and April 2025 were women (up from 24%), and the median pay gap reduced from 9.1% to 8.4%. Senior management gender representation exceeds both the fintech industry average (30%) and UK banking average (40%). The bank is a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter.

In April 2025, IBM eliminated its DEI department and Diversity Council (established in the 1990s), stopped linking executive compensation to workforce diversity targets, and altered its supplier diversity program. The changes came after conservative activist Robby Starbuck contacted IBM in February and Heritage Foundation filed a shareholder proposal. CEO Arvind Krishna announced the changes via memo and video to employees.