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On July 25, 2024, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld Proposition 22, allowing Uber and other gig companies to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. Uber and other gig companies had spent $200 million to pass Prop 22 in 2020 - the most expensive ballot measure in California history.

In July 2024, Reid Hoffman publicly called for Vice President Kamala Harris to replace Lina Khan as FTC Chair if elected. Khan had aggressively pursued antitrust enforcement against Big Tech, including unsuccessfully trying to block Microsoft's $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition. Hoffman's call was widely criticized as a major Democratic donor seeking to weaken tech regulation, given his financial interests in companies affected by FTC enforcement including Microsoft (board member until 2023) and various tech investments through Greylock Partners.

On July 24, 2024, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced an entry ban on 13 Japanese business executives including Hiroshi Mikitani. The decision was described as 'a response to Japan's ongoing sanctions against our country in connection with the special military operation.' Mikitani had previously donated $8.7 million to Ukraine.

ServiceNow reported potential compliance issues to the DOJ related to hiring Raj Iyer, former CIO of the US Army, to head its global public sector. Iyer joined ServiceNow three months after the Army awarded the company a $432 million contract. Following an internal investigation, President/COO CJ Desai resigned after the board determined company policy was violated. CEO Bill McDermott described the hiring decision as 'ill-timed.'

On the 'One Decision' podcast, Hinton referred to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as 'oligarchs' and when asked if he trusted them to control AI, responded that calling them oligarchs answers that question.

Microsoft took a pro-union stance unprecedented among tech giants, pledging neutrality toward workers seeking unionization. By August 2025, nearly 3,000 workers at Microsoft-owned gaming studios had unionized, including 500+ World of Warcraft developers (July 2024), 160+ cinematics workers (August 2025), and 70+ QA workers who ratified a contract with guaranteed wages, crunch restrictions, and AI protections (February 2026). Microsoft stated: 'We continue to support our employees' right to choose how they are represented in the workplace.'

Reed Hastings made his largest single-candidate donation ever, contributing $7 million to a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris in July 2024. This followed his public call for Biden to step aside, stating 'Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump.'

In July 2024, Sandberg publicly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, praising her as 'an accomplished leader, a fierce advocate of abortion rights, and the strongest candidate to lead our country forward.'

Sam Altman funded OpenResearch's Unconditional Cash Study, the largest UBI pilot in the United States. Beginning in 2020, 3,000 participants in Illinois and Texas received $1,000 monthly for three years, representing a 40% boost to recipients' incomes. The study published peer-reviewed findings in 2024. Altman has publicly argued that AI-driven job displacement may necessitate universal basic income, and in 2021 proposed that AI could generate enough wealth to pay every US adult $13,500 per year.

On July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike released a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor security product that crashed 8.5 million Windows computers globally - the largest IT outage in history. The update contained a logic error causing out-of-bounds memory reads. Airlines cancelled 5,078 flights (Delta alone lost $500M), hospitals and emergency services were disrupted, and banks went offline. Former employees reported company prioritized 'speed over quality' with inadequate testing. Global economic damage exceeded $10 billion. CEO George Kurtz declined to testify before Congress.

In July 2024, Oracle settled a class action lawsuit for $115 million over allegations it operated a 'worldwide surveillance machine' collecting detailed personal data on approximately 5 billion people. The lawsuit alleged Oracle compiled 'digital dossiers' tracking where people browsed, banked, dined, shopped, and used credit cards, then sold this data. Larry Ellison had publicly acknowledged the data collection scope in 2016. Oracle agreed to stop gathering user-generated information from URLs of previously visited websites and collecting text from online forms.

David Sacks delivered a primetime speech at the Republican National Convention in July 2024, making the case for Trump to Silicon Valley and discussing the need for pro-business and pro-crypto policies. The speech signaled growing tech industry alignment with Trump.

Ben Horowitz donated $2.5M to Right for America PAC (2024) and $3M to MAGA Inc. (first half 2025), marking a dramatic shift from his decades as a Democratic donor. Between 2008-2023, he and wife Felicia had given nearly $300,000 to Democrats including Obama, Biden, and Booker. After 2022, two-thirds of their donations went to Republicans.

Marc Andreessen donated $2.5M to Right for America PAC (2024), $844,600 to Trump campaign/RNC (2024), and $3M to MAGA Inc. (first half 2025). Since the election, he has been spending 'about half his time' at Mar-a-Lago as an unpaid advisor, helping vet candidates for DOGE and the administration.

Elon Musk publicly endorsed Trump in July 2024 and appeared at Trump campaign rallies, jumping on stage at a Pennsylvania rally in October 2024. He used his X platform to actively promote Trump and attack Democrats, leveraging his massive following for political influence.

At the Sun Valley Conference in July 2024, Reid Hoffman reportedly responded to Peter Thiel's comment about making Trump a martyr by saying he wished he had made Trump an 'actual martyr.' The comment came just before the attempted assassination of Trump. Hoffman later clarified he 'meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence.'

On July 12, 2024 AT&T disclosed that hackers had stolen call and text-message metadata for 'nearly all' of its approximately 110 million wireless customers between May 1 and October 31, 2022. The data was exfiltrated from a third-party cloud workspace hosted on Snowflake using stolen customer credentials. AT&T reportedly paid the threat actor approximately $370,000 in Bitcoin to delete the data. The DOJ allowed disclosure to be delayed twice on national-security grounds before the eventual filing.

G42 CEO Peng Xiao previously held leadership positions at Pegasus, a subsidiary of Emirati company DarkMatter -- a corporate affiliate of G42 that developed spyware and surveillance tools reportedly used to target dissidents, journalists, politicians, and U.S. companies (documented by a 2019 Reuters investigation into the 'Project Raven' surveillance program). The U.S. State Department later fined former American DarkMatter employees for violations of the Arms Export Control Act. G42 has also maintained relationships with Chinese firms including Huawei and BGI Group (the genomics company placed on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List in March 2023 over its role supporting PRC surveillance and alleged complicity in Xinjiang human-rights abuses). These ties drew sustained scrutiny as Microsoft built a multi-billion-dollar AI partnership with G42: in January 2024 the New York Times reported the arrangement was 'under scrutiny,' and in July 2024 the House Select Committee on the CCP and House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a joint letter to the White House warning that the deal involved 'unprecedented transfer of highly sensitive, U.S.-origin technology' to a firm with unresolved ties to PRC military-civil fusion and human-rights-abuse-linked entities, urging robust national-security guardrails before any further expansion (Phase 2) of the partnership. As of the letters, G42 and DarkMatter had not been added to the Commerce Department's Entity List despite the requests.

A July 2024 CNN investigation found that Airbnb systematically failed to protect guests from hidden cameras in rental properties. The investigation revealed Airbnb does not notify law enforcement when hosts violate its camera policy, even when children are involved. The company used Section 230 as a legal shield and kept the scope of the problem hidden through arbitration, confidential settlements, and employee NDAs. A survey found 55% of hosts admitted to still using indoor cameras even after Airbnb's 2024 ban.

In July-August 2024, Samsung Electronics workers staged the company's first-ever strike in its 55-year history. The National Samsung Electronics Union, representing over 30,000 workers, walked out demanding higher wages, better bonus structures, and an additional day of annual leave. The strike highlighted growing labor tensions at a company historically known for suppressing union activity.

During federal trial in Lowell v. Lyft wheelchair accessibility lawsuit, former head of Lyft's national WAV program Chris Wu testified that Lyft's policy is to do 'as little as possible unless forced' to serve people with disabilities. Lyft only offers WAV service in 4% of total service areas (9 cities). WAV Program Manager testified she had no professional experience in transportation management, Americans with Disabilities Act, or developing programs for people with disabilities prior to joining Lyft. Budget for WAV services decreasing from 2023 to 2024. Lyft consistently argues it's merely a 'technology company' not subject to ADA, claims it's 'not in the transportation business.' Judge dismissed case September 30, 2024, finding plaintiffs didn't prove proposed accommodations would be effective.

On July 5, 2024, Hitachi Zosen Corporation announced that two subsidiaries had falsified fuel efficiency and emissions data for large marine engines since 1999, affecting 1,364 units including 903 non-Japanese flag vessels. Data was overwritten during shop tests. Japanese authorities launched investigation of all marine engine manufacturers and suspended related certifications.

Within days of unveiling AI design features at Config 2024 in June 2024, designers showed Figma's 'Make Designs' AI feature reproducing near-pixel-perfect copies of Apple's Weather app interface and other prominent existing UIs. Figma CEO Dylan Field publicly apologized within 24 hours, paused the feature for additional safety review, and committed to retraining the model with a vetted training corpus. The episode highlighted the IP-leakage risks of training generative design AI on web-scraped UI corpora.

Delivery Hero subsidiary foodpanda Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia's Employees Provident Fund (EPF) on July 2, 2024, enabling 50,000+ delivery riders to make voluntary retirement contributions through the i-Saraan scheme, with matching incentives up to 15% (capped at RM500/year), tax relief, and death assistance provisions. Part of the broader 'Panda Hearts' rider welfare programme covering insurance, safety training, and financial literacy.

Sir Philip Hulme, co-founder and major shareholder of Computacenter, made multiple donations totaling £25,000 to Reform UK in 2024, including a donation just three days before the July general election. This followed his historical pattern of Conservative Party donations.

Ron Conway donated approximately $500,000 to at least two funds tied to Kamala Harris's 2024 campaign. Signed the VCsforKamala pledge alongside other venture leaders. Long-time prominent Democratic donor.

Investigation by +972 Magazine revealed in August 2024 that AWS provides Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate with cloud storage holding intelligence information on 'almost everyone' in Gaza. Israeli military sources confirmed using AWS for mass surveillance since late 2022. Col. Racheli Dembinsky publicly confirmed in July 2024 that the Israeli army uses AWS cloud services in Gaza operations. 1,700 Amazon employees petitioned CEO Andy Jassy to rescind contracts with Israeli military.

Microsoft laid off its internal DEI team in July 2024 citing 'changing business needs.' Subsequently, the company removed the requirement for employees to create yearly DEI-focused objectives (previously called 'DEI Core Priority') and stopped evaluating DEI contributions in annual performance reviews. Microsoft also announced it would not publish its traditional annual diversity and inclusion report for 2025.

Cellebrite publicly stated it had been 'instrumental' in providing phone hacking services to Israeli intelligence agencies since October 7, 2023. The company's tools were used to harvest data from phones of thousands of Palestinians captured from Gaza—the Israeli military later admitted the vast majority were civilians. Cellebrite also received Pentagon funding in 2024 to develop products to map Hamas operatives and Gaza tunnels.

In July 2024, European Parliament member Daniel Freund reported a spyware attack attempt assessed as likely emanating from Candiru. The attack masqueraded as a legitimate email link. Freund, a vocal critic of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, believes Hungary's authoritarian administration was responsible. Active Candiru infrastructure was identified in Hungary and Saudi Arabia through late 2024.