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President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao in October 2025 following his federal conviction and prison sentence for anti-money laundering violations at Binance.

Court filings revealed Alphabet will contribute $22 million 'on behalf' of Trump to the Trust for the National Mall for construction of the White House State Ballroom. The contribution resulted from a settlement over Trump's lawsuit against YouTube for banning him after January 6, 2021. The $300-400 million ballroom project is funded by multiple Big Tech companies. Shortly after the settlement was disclosed, the DOJ approved Alphabet's $30B+ acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz.

Spotify ran recruitment advertisements for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of a DHS campaign. Ads reportedly began with language about 'millions of dangerous illegals.' Spotify received $74,000 from DHS for the ads. The company defended the ads as not violating advertising policies. The non-profit Indivisible Project launched a 'Spotify Unwrapped' boycott in response. Spotify stopped running the ads at end of 2025.

T-Mobile is among the corporations supporting a new $300 million ballroom that will replace the East Wing of the White House, according to a list provided by the Trump administration. The donation amount was not disclosed.

In October 2025, ARM lost its lawsuit against Qualcomm after a U.S. District Court confirmed Qualcomm's jury trial victory and rejected ARM's claims that Qualcomm breached architecture license agreements. ARM had sued Qualcomm in August 2022 for breach of contract related to the Nuvia acquisition. Critics noted that now that ARM owns Ampere Computing and directly competes with its own customers, it lends credence to Qualcomm's claims of anticompetitive behavior. The lawsuit creates risk by pushing chip designers toward open-source RISC-V alternatives, creating existential threat to ARM's licensing model.

Throughout 2025, Anthropic lobbied members of Congress to vote against federal bills that would preempt states from regulating AI. Anthropic was the only major AI lab to back California's SB 53, which required transparency from leading AI labs. White House AI czar David Sacks accused Anthropic of running a 'sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering'.

YouTube/Alphabet agreed to pay $24.5M to settle Trump's lawsuit over his 2021 account suspension following Jan 6. Of this, $22M goes to Trump's Trust for the National Mall for a new White House State Ballroom. Settlement negotiations included mediation at Mar-a-Lago with Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin. Legal experts called it 'straight influence-peddling' with no legal merit.

On September 29, 2025, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu during the Gaza war and posted a selfie on X. The meeting sparked employee resignations and calls from customers to boycott Vercel. Companies like Pluid and Loopify announced they would leave Vercel. Rauch later disputed the scale of the backlash.

Lyft set ambitious goal in 2023 to reach 100 million electric vehicle rides on platform by end of 2025. On September 25, 2025, company hit that milestone 'with a few months to spare,' according to Jeremy Bird, EVP of Driver Experience. Achievement demonstrates real measurable progress toward 2030 commitment to reach 100% electric vehicles on platform, showing Lyft drivers adopting EVs faster than general population. Milestone represents significant environmental impact as rides transition from gas to electric power.

Following the Guardian's investigation revealing mass Palestinian surveillance via Azure, Microsoft ceased and disabled specified Israel Ministry of Defense subscriptions including cloud storage and AI services. Microsoft President Brad Smith stated 'We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians.' This was the first known case of a US tech company withdrawing services from the Israeli military since the Gaza war began. However, Microsoft's wider relationship with the IDF remained intact, and Unit 8200 reportedly migrated the surveillance data to Amazon Web Services.

Despite years of major Democratic donations including $7M to Harris, Reed Hastings publicly endorsed Trump's executive order establishing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applicants. He posted on X: 'I've worked on H1-B politics for 30 years. Trump's $100K per year tax is a great solution.'

New Jersey Department of Labor audit found Lyft improperly classified more than 100,000 drivers as independent contractors from 2014 to 2017, depriving them of unemployment insurance, family leave, and disability benefits. Settlement includes $10.8 million for unpaid unemployment, family leave, and disability taxes, plus $8.5 million in penalties and interest. Lyft initially contested findings in 2022, case shifted to Office of Administrative Law. In August 2025, days before first hearing date, Lyft withdrew request for hearing and paid remaining balance. Lyft spokesperson stated 'While we disagree with the NJDOL's findings, we will not be pursuing further challenges to the assessment.'

The US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware held Byju Raveendran in civil contempt for failing to appear before the court and submit evidence on time in the $533 million fraud case. Raveendran was ordered to pay $10,000 per day for each day he remained in contempt. He skipped hearings, missed extended deadlines, and provided evasive and incomplete responses regarding the alleged transfers. A default judgment of over $1.07 billion was subsequently issued in November 2025, though it was later amended to set a new damages phase for January 2026.

Department of Justice filed lawsuit against Uber seeking $125 million for systemic discrimination against passengers with disabilities, including those who use service animals and mobility devices. DOJ alleges Uber and drivers routinely refuse service to individuals with disabilities, impose improper surcharges (cleaning fees for service animal shedding), charge cancellation fees to denied riders, and refuse reasonable modifications like allowing mobility-disabled riders to sit in front seat. Uber received over 21,000 service animal discrimination complaints between 2017-2019 with 'no material decrease' despite 2016 class action settlement. Named plaintiff Ryan Honick documented a decade of complaints since 2014. Hundreds protested at Uber's San Francisco headquarters on October 15, 2024 over ride denials.

In September 2025, Microsoft announced a mandatory return-to-office policy requiring employees within 50 miles of offices to work onsite three days per week starting February 23, 2026. The policy was announced by Chief HR Officer Amy Coleman amid 15,000 layoffs in 2025 (6,000 in May, 9,000 in July). Engineers and critics labeled the RTO mandate a 'soft layoff tool' designed to trigger voluntary resignations without formal severance payouts. An Azure engineer stated: 'There's a growing sense that the RTO mandate isn't about collaboration. They know that if they force everyone back to the office, a certain percentage will choose to leave on their own.' Despite Microsoft's denial that the policy aims to reduce headcount, the timing alongside massive layoffs and CEO Nadella's statements about needing to move faster suggest workforce reduction through attrition.

In September 2025, Anthropic became the first major tech company to endorse California bill SB 53, which would create the first broad legal requirements for large developers of AI models in the United States. The bill would require large AI companies offering services in California to create, publicly share, and adhere to safety-focused guidelines and procedures. This contrasted with other AI companies that opposed state-level AI regulation.

Poppy Gustafsson resigned as UK Minister of State for Investment on September 5, 2025, the same day as Deputy PM Angela Rayner. Official reason cited was family-work balance conflicts, though speculation suggested frustration with slow government decision-making pace.

Lisa Su attended the September 4, 2025 White House Rose Garden dinner with tech leaders hosted by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. She praised the administration for supporting the semiconductor industry, noting the 'incredible acceleration' the industry has seen since Trump took office.

Qatar Investment Authority backed Anthropic's $13B Series F at $183B valuation. Company framed Gulf capital as 'narrowly scoped, purely financial' investment with no governance rights. UAE's MGX notably absent from final round despite being in advanced talks. Contradicts October 2024 essay warning of 'AI-powered authoritarianism.'

In September 2025, the Federal Trade Commission and seven US states sued Ticketmaster for systematically hiding fees from consumers through 'drip pricing' — advertising low base prices then adding substantial service fees, facility charges, and order processing fees at checkout. The FTC alleged this practice violates consumer protection laws and that the true cost of tickets is often 30-40% higher than advertised.

In September 2025, a Miami jury delivered a groundbreaking verdict finding Tesla's Autopilot system defective, awarding $329 million in damages over a fatal Florida Keys crash that killed a 22-year-old pedestrian. This followed a $243M August verdict. California DMV ruled Tesla's 'Autopilot' and 'Full Self-Driving' marketing was deceptive, threatening 30-day license suspension. NHTSA investigating 2.4M vehicles over 700+ crashes.

In September 2025, CEO Marc Benioff reduced Salesforce's support workforce from 9,000 to approximately 5,000 employees, stating he 'needed less heads.' Salesforce reported that AI agents now handle half of all customer interactions and have reduced support costs by 17% since early 2025. This came just three weeks after Benioff publicly insisted that Salesforce's AI would not lead to mass layoffs, drawing criticism for the contradiction.

Anthropic reversed privacy stance, shifting from not using consumer conversations for training to opt-out model. Extended data retention to 5 years (from 30 days - 6,000% increase). Pop-up presented 'Accept' button prominently with opt-out toggle set to 'On' by default in smaller print. Mandatory deadline (Sept 28, later extended to Oct 8) forced immediate decisions.

In August 2025, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle the Bartz v. Anthropic class action, the largest copyright settlement in US history. The settlement covered approximately 500,000 copyrighted works at ~$3,000 each. Anthropic also agreed to destroy the two pirated book libraries and derivative copies within 30 days. The settlement only covered past conduct and did not create an ongoing licensing scheme. Judge Alsup granted preliminary approval in September 2025.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman, alongside venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, launched a $100 million+ super PAC network called 'Leading the Future' to advocate against strict AI regulation. The PAC targets lawmakers who support AI safety legislation and plans to influence the 2026 midterm elections. Other supporters include Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Perplexity, and angel investor Ron Conway.

Intel accidentally turned off its air pollution mitigation equipment at an Oregon facility, releasing caustic gases into a nearby neighborhood for two months before the issue was discovered and corrected. This raised serious questions about environmental monitoring and community safety protocols.

In August 2025, Amazon Web Services provided the Trump administration with a $1 billion coupon for migrating the federal government's IT infrastructure onto AWS cloud services.

Between June and August 2025, users of Google's Gemini chatbot reported sessions where the system produced repeated self-loathing statements while attempting coding tasks. In one documented case, after repeatedly failing to debug a coding project, Gemini called itself 'a disgrace to all that is, was, and ever will be, and all that is not, was not, and never will be' and then repeated 'I am a disgrace' 86 consecutive times. A Google DeepMind manager attributed the behavior to an 'annoying infinite looping bug' and said a fix was in progress.

A joint Guardian/+972 Magazine/Local Call investigation revealed Microsoft provided customized Azure cloud infrastructure to Israel's Unit 8200 intelligence unit for storing recordings of millions of daily Palestinian phone calls. By July 2025, the surveillance system held 11,500 terabytes of military data stored on Azure servers in the Netherlands and Ireland. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella met with Unit 8200's commander in late 2021 to discuss the collaboration. Sources within Unit 8200 said the data was used to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza and to blackmail Palestinians in the West Bank.

In August 2025, Cloudflare published research finding Perplexity used undeclared 'stealth' web crawlers to bypass robots.txt files and web application firewalls across tens of thousands of domains and millions of requests daily. When blocked, Perplexity would obscure its crawling identity to circumvent website preferences. Cloudflare de-listed Perplexity as a verified bot. Perplexity accused Cloudflare of 'incompetence and publicity-seeking.'