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In May 2021, Gigabyte published promotional content for its Aero laptop series that mocked Chinese manufacturing, implying inferior quality compared to products made elsewhere. The backlash was severe in China, with products pulled from major retailers JD.com and Suning.com. Gigabyte's share price dropped significantly, losing approximately $550 million in market value. The company issued an apology calling the statement 'false' and inconsistent with its actual manufacturing practices.

Reports from People Make Games and GameSpot in 2021 revealed Valve leadership blocked internal diversity efforts and prevented the company from making a Black Lives Matter statement. Multiple former employees described severe lack of diversity, with one stating 'there was never more than one female programmer at the company' during their tenure.

Bill Gates met multiple times with Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2014, after Epstein's 2008 sex offender conviction. Gates visited Epstein's Manhattan mansion and flew on Epstein's private jet. Gates initially minimized the relationship, claiming no 'business relationship or friendship.' In 2021, it emerged the meetings were more extensive. Gates has since repeatedly apologized, calling it 'foolish' and 'a huge mistake.' Melinda French Gates cited the Epstein association as contributing to their divorce, calling Epstein 'evil personified.'

The Wikimedia Foundation paid departing CEO Katherine Maher a severance package of $623,286 (about 1.5x her base compensation). Analysis showed total executive compensation from 2017-2022 placed WMF executives 'above the 95th percentile of US wage earners,' raising concerns about nonprofit governance.

On April 26, 2021, Apple launched App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in iOS 14.5, requiring all apps to explicitly ask users for permission before tracking them across other apps and websites. Up to 96% of US users opted out. Facebook estimated the change cost it ~$10 billion in 2022 revenue and launched a public campaign against Apple, claiming ATT would hurt small businesses. The feature fundamentally reshaped the digital advertising industry by giving users control over cross-app tracking.

In April 2021, Basecamp/37signals co-founders announced a ban on societal political discussions in company tools and dissolved the DEI advisory council. The changes followed the discovery of a list of 'funny customer names' maintained by employees. Approximately one-third of the company (20+ of 58 employees) accepted buyout packages and left, including the heads of design, marketing, and customer support.

In April-May 2021, Bill Gates personally opposed waiving TRIPS intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, arguing that vaccine factory capacity, not patents, was the bottleneck. Gates lobbied US Trade Representative Katherine Tai against the waiver. Critics noted the Gates Foundation had earlier convinced Oxford University to partner exclusively with AstraZeneca rather than sharing its vaccine formula through an open license. The Foundation reversed course in May 2021, stating support for a narrow waiver during the pandemic.

China fined Alibaba $2.8 billion (18.2 billion yuan), representing 4% of 2019 sales, for antitrust violations. Investigation focused on forcing merchants to choose exclusively between platforms ('pick one of two'), stifling competition. Alibaba's market share exceeded 50% on Taobao and Tmall from 2015-2019. The antitrust review ended in August 2024 after more than three years.

Logitech announced in 2021 that it was discontinuing the Harmony line of universal remote controls, and later shut down the cloud services required for device setup and some features. Critics argued this was planned obsolescence, as the devices depended on cloud connectivity for configuration. While existing remotes continued working for basic functions, new setup and some smart home integrations became impossible.

In April 2021, China's State Administration for Market Regulation fined Alibaba $2.8 billion for anti-competitive practices, specifically for forcing merchants to choose between Alibaba's platforms and competitors ('pick one of two'). The fine represented 4% of Alibaba's 2019 domestic revenue. The action was widely seen as part of broader government crackdown on tech companies following Jack Ma's regulatory criticism.

Under Jeff Bezos's leadership as CEO (through July 2021) and executive chairman, Amazon deployed aggressive tactics to prevent warehouse workers from organizing, including captive audience meetings, anti-union consultants, and surveillance of European warehouse employees. The NLRB ordered a re-run of the 2021 Bessemer, Alabama union vote after finding Amazon improperly interfered. Senators Warren and Sanders wrote to Bezos about Amazon's 'potentially illegal anti-union behavior.' Amazon spent millions on union-busting efforts while workers reported mandatory overtime, intense surveillance, and break-neck production targets.

In April 2021, Signal integrated MobileCoin (MOB) cryptocurrency for payments within the app. Critics noted that Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike was an early advisor to MobileCoin and was paid in MOB tokens, creating a potential conflict of interest. The MOB token price surged after the announcement. Privacy advocates questioned adding a privacy-coin to a messaging app.

DeepMind's AI technology is part of Google's Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government including its defense establishment. Internal Google documents show the company knew it couldn't control how Israel would use the technology. The contract forbids Google from denying service to any Israeli government entities, including its military.

In March 2021, major institutional investors including Aberdeen Standard, Aviva, Legal & General, M&G, and others managing over £800bn boycotted Deliveroo's IPO citing worker rights concerns. Aberdeen Standard called rider conditions a 'red flag'. The IWGB union reported riders earning as little as £2/hour while Shu stood to net up to £530 million. Shares crashed 30% on opening day - the worst London debut in two decades. Riders went on strike during the IPO.

In March 2021, Microsoft was awarded a 10-year contract worth up to $21.9 billion to supply the US Army with 120,000+ HoloLens-based IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmentation System) augmented reality headsets for combat use. Over 250 employees had signed a 2019 petition opposing the contract, saying they 'didn't want to become war profiteers.' CEO Nadella defended the contract. The program faced technical issues with soldiers reporting nausea and headaches, and Microsoft eventually transferred hardware development to Anduril in February 2025.

In 2021, Amazon conducted an aggressive anti-union campaign at its Bessemer, Alabama warehouse (BHM1) during RWDSU union elections. The NLRB found Amazon violated labor law through mandatory 'captive audience' meetings, improper polling of employees, threats about facility closure, and installing a mailbox that created the appearance of election irregularity. The first election was invalidated; a second vote in 2022 also rejected unionization amid continued objections.

On March 30, 2021 AT&T announced a $2 billion commitment over three years to address the homework gap and digital divide via the AT&T Connected Learning initiative, including discounted broadband for low-income families, free Wi-Fi connected community spaces (AT&T Connected Learning Centers), and computer-science curriculum funding. The pledge was among the largest single corporate commitments to digital-equity programs of the pandemic-recovery period.

In March 2021, the FSF quietly reinstated Richard Stallman to its board of directors, announced without prior notice to staff or the community at the LibrePlanet 2021 conference. Stallman had resigned in 2019 after making controversial comments defending Marvin Minsky in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The reinstatement triggered massive backlash: an open letter with 3000+ signatures demanded removal of Stallman and the entire board. Over 41 organizations including Red Hat, Mozilla, GNOME Foundation, EFF, SUSE, and Software Freedom Conservancy condemned the decision. Red Hat suspended all FSF funding. Three senior staff (executive director, deputy director, CTO) and board member Kat Walsh resigned in protest. The FSF board doubled down in April 2021, defending the decision.

In March 2021, Stallman was reinstated to the FSF board of directors despite an open letter signed by thousands opposing his return. Major organizations including Red Hat, EFF, FSFE, and Software Freedom Conservancy withdrew support or condemned the decision, citing his history of problematic behavior.

Mozilla Foundation's Privacy Not Included review found MindDoc allows Facebook to collect data on users including app usage frequency and timing. The privacy policy used vague language stating they 'generally do not share' data with third parties, giving 'wiggle room.' Mozilla researchers couldn't find the data deletion option stated in the privacy policy. MindDoc told Consumer Reports it would update privacy policies to clarify third-party data sharing.

Consumer Reports investigation found Wysa was sending data to Facebook. After initial tests revealed the data sharing, Wysa began obscuring IDs shared with Facebook. The co-founder told Consumer Reports users could opt out of research by email, but this option wasn't easy to find in the privacy policy or app.

Timnit Gebru co-authored 'On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?' with Emily Bender, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Margaret Mitchell. Published at FAccT 2021, the paper warned about environmental costs, encoded biases, and limitations of large language models. It has been cited over 8,000 times and 'stochastic parrot' was named 2023 AI-related Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society.

In March 2021, Haugen moved to Puerto Rico to join 'crypto friends' on the island. Under Act 22, Puerto Rico residents who live there at least half the year are exempt from taxes on capital gains. Haugen stated 'I did buy crypto at the right time' when asked how she supported herself. Critics noted the irony of calling for tech companies to fulfill social duties while living in a tax haven in a U.S. territory with high poverty rates.

EVGA's GeForce RTX 3090 FTW3 graphics cards experienced widespread thermal pad quality issues, with GDDR6X memory junction temperatures reaching 110°C and causing thermal throttling. The problem was traced to inadequate thermal pad contact between memory modules and the heatsink. EVGA addressed the issue through its RMA process but did not issue a formal recall.

In February 2021, security researchers discovered that Brave's private browsing with Tor mode was leaking DNS queries for .onion addresses to the user's regular DNS resolver rather than routing them through Tor. This exposed users' attempts to visit hidden services to their ISP or DNS provider, undermining the core privacy guarantees of Tor browsing. Brave acknowledged the bug and issued a patch.

On February 19, 2021, the UK Supreme Court unanimously upheld in Uber BV v Aslam that Uber drivers are 'workers' under employment law, not self-employed contractors. The ruling entitled approximately 60,000 UK Uber drivers to national living wage, paid holidays, and other worker protections from the moment they log into the app. The court cited five factors including Uber's control over fares, driver autonomy restrictions, the ratings-based penalty system, and restrictions on driver-passenger communication. Uber had fought the ruling through every level of the court system since 2016.

On February 19, 2021 the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Uber BV v Aslam that Uber drivers are workers (not self-employed independent contractors) and are entitled to the National Minimum Wage, statutory holiday pay, and breaks from the moment they log onto the app. Uber was forced to reclassify approximately 70,000 UK drivers and pay back-wages. The ruling was a landmark for gig-economy platform-labor regulation and influenced subsequent rulings in Spain, the Netherlands, and the EU Platform Workers Directive.

On February 16, 2021, IBM announced a commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, prioritizing actual emissions reductions, energy efficiency, and clean energy use. IBM pledged to procure 75% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and 90% by 2030. In 2021, IBM received the inaugural Terra Carta Seal from the Prince of Wales for environmental sustainability commitment.

In 2021, Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z established the Bitcoin Trust (Btrust) with initial funding of 500 Bitcoin to nurture developer talent and support the free and open-source Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa. Block also led a $2 million seed investment in Gridless, which builds bitcoin mining sites alongside small-scale renewable energy producers in rural Africa. Dorsey has actively championed Africa Bitcoin Conference and attended as a speaker.

The NZXT H1 mini-ITX case was recalled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission in February 2021 after reports of the case's PCIe riser card screw causing electrical shorts that led to fires. Approximately 32,000 units were affected. NZXT initially attempted a fix with nylon screws before the full CPSC recall was issued. At least one house fire was reported.