Corporate Transparency

In January 2026, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the platform has paid over $100 billion to creators, artists, and media companies in the past four years. YouTube now has over 3 million channels enrolled in its ad and subscription revenue-sharing program (YPP). Mohan also stated YouTube would lobby for policymakers to recognize creators in labor data and acknowledge them in industry forums, advocating that 'Being a creator is a full-time job with an international audience.'

Despite Eric Schmidt publicly warning against autonomous weapons at Stanford in 2024, calling automated kill decisions 'terrible,' White Stork's X-Drone developed AI quadcopters that 'can attack Russian soldiers with or without a human in the loop' and 'when communications fail, the drones could hunt alone.' NORDA Dynamics founder Nazar Bigun stated: 'I think we created the monster. And I'm not sure where it's going to go.' The company operated through multiple shell companies (Merops, Aurelian Industries, Swift Beat, Volya Robotics) obscuring Schmidt's ownership until investigative reporting revealed it.

During a December 20, 2025 power outage in San Francisco, Waymo robotaxis stalled across the city, blocking intersections and emergency vehicles. Mayor Daniel Lurie texted Waymo's CEO reporting a car blocking a fire truck from reaching an active fire. In subsequent regulatory proceedings, a judge scolded Waymo after the company refused to disclose how many robotaxis had stalled, claiming the information was a trade secret.

Uber abandoned its 2030 commitment to achieve 100% electric vehicle fleets in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company discontinued monthly EV bonuses for drivers in December 2025, eliminating a key incentive program. Additionally removed climate language from April 2025 investor materials and made ESG reports inaccessible. Despite original $800 million 'Green Future' pledge, only $439 million was invested as of May 2025. Current electrification rates show only 9% in North America, 15% in Europe, and 40% in London - far from goals. Uber is actively fighting electrification requirements in California, New York City, and Toronto. The reversal followed President Trump's inauguration, to which Uber donated $1 million.

Gebru has consistently called out tech executives who pivot to AI safety narratives after building potentially harmful technologies. In December 2025, she urged the public to question such rebrandings, arguing that the AI safety discourse is being co-opted by the same actors who created the problems, diverting attention from concrete harms to speculative existential risks.

Since 2020, Coinbase has published annual transparency reports detailing government and law enforcement requests for customer information. The 2025 report (covering October 2024-September 2025) disclosed 12,716 requests, a 19% increase year-over-year, with approximately 53% from outside the United States. The reports provide customers with data about requests received and offer insight into global law enforcement and regulatory trends around the world.

In December 2025, Instacart agreed to pay $60 million in customer refunds to settle FTC allegations of deceptive practices. The FTC accused Instacart of falsely advertising free deliveries while not clearly disclosing service fees. Separately, a Consumer Reports investigation found Instacart was running AI-enabled pricing experiments that charged different customers different prices for identical products - sometimes varying by as much as 23%. After the investigation, Instacart immediately ended all item price tests.

Reuters obtained internal Meta documents showing the company displayed approximately 15 billion 'higher risk' scam advertisements per day, generating an estimated $16 billion annually (10% of revenue). Documents revealed Meta set 'revenue guardrails' limiting fraud enforcement to 0.15% of revenue (~$135M), and executives proposed focusing fraud control only on countries with imminent regulatory action. Internal documents showed Meta was involved in 1 in 3 U.S. frauds. Meta also developed a 'playbook' to manage regulatory perception of scam ads.

As of November 2025, Anthropic has not reported carbon emissions figures (no Scope 1, 2, or 3 data), published sustainability reports, or committed to climate goals through major frameworks. OpenAI and Anthropic present the starkest transparency gap among frontier AI companies.

In December 2024, OpenAI announced plans to convert from a nonprofit-controlled structure to a for-profit public benefit corporation. California AG Bonta approved the restructuring in October 2025 after extracting concessions. The deal gave Microsoft ~27% ownership and was contingent on SoftBank's $30B investment. A coalition of 60+ California nonprofits (Eyes on OpenAI) criticized the deal as setting a dangerous precedent for startups evading taxes and having 'a bazillion conflicts of interest.' Elon Musk attempted to block it, at one point offering $97.4B to acquire the company.

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.

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, 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.

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.

In August 2025, Match Group settled FTC charges for $14 million. The FTC alleged Match sent notifications from fraud-flagged accounts (90% confirmed fraudulent) to induce subscriptions, with ~500,000 subscriptions purchased within 24 hours of misleading emails. Internal documents described the cancellation process as 'hard to find, tedious, and confusing...over 6 clicks.'

At the White House AI summit in July 2025 where Trump unveiled his AI roadmap, the All-In podcast (co-hosted by Craft Ventures founder David Sacks) attempted to be the exclusive host of the event and asked potential sponsors to pay $1 million for access to a private reception and other events. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles reportedly had to intervene to prevent the All-In podcast from monopolizing the event. This raised concerns about monetization of government access through Sacks' dual role as White House AI czar and podcast host.

In mid-2025, an AI-generated music project called 'Velvet Sundown' accumulated over 1 million streams on Spotify and received a verified artist badge, despite being entirely created by artificial intelligence without human musicians. The case highlighted Spotify's inadequate systems for detecting and labeling AI-generated content, raising concerns about AI music displacing human artists and misleading listeners about the nature of what they're hearing.

Nvidia's FY2025 sustainability report revealed total carbon emissions of approximately 7.15 million tonnes CO2e, an 87% increase from the prior year's 3.8 million tonnes. Nearly all emissions (97%+) came from Scope 3 (supply chain and product use), with 'Purchased Goods and Services' accounting for 87% of Scope 3 emissions. A Greenpeace report gave Nvidia the lowest ranking (F) for supply chain transparency and noted Nvidia has not set any renewable energy targets for its supply chain. The company has no formal net-zero commitment across all scopes, though it achieved 100% renewable electricity for its own operations in FY2025.

After two firefighters suffered chemical burns during training in Boring Company tunnels in December 2024, Nevada OSHA fined the company $400,000 in May 2025. Within 24 hours of company president Steve Davis (who had just finished running DOGE) calling a former Tesla executive in the Governor's office, the citations were rescinded at a meeting with high-level Nevada officials. Public meeting records were altered to remove evidence. Federal OSHA opened an investigation into Nevada OSHA over the incident. A congresswoman demanded transparency, calling it outside 'the official process.'

Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined TikTok €530 million (€485M for data transfer violations, €45M for transparency failures) after finding TikTok transferred EEA user data to China without adequate safeguards. TikTok also admitted it had provided inaccurate information to the inquiry, revealing EU data had been stored on Chinese servers contrary to its own evidence. Third-largest GDPR fine ever and first EU data transfer fine involving China.