Government Ethics & Anti-Corruption

Germany's Defense Ministry moved to award Munich-based Helsing a €580 million Combat Fighter System Nucleus (CFSN) contract to build the software/autonomy backbone for the country's post-FCAS air-combat program, internal documents reported by Politico in August 2026 show. The ministry's own procurement notes warned the CFSN architecture 'should avoid dependence on any one supplier' yet proceeded to award the first phase to Helsing alone, citing a national-security exemption from standard EU tender rules; of four contractors considered (Airbus Defence and Space, Helsing, MBDA Germany, Diehl Defence), only Helsing is reported to have supplied all requested evidence. The contract is structured as cost-reimbursement rather than fixed-price, and a second 2027 phase was designed to avoid the parliamentary budget-committee approval normally required for projects over €25 million.

Between spring and mid-2026, Elon Musk directed at least $90 million to Republican-aligned political committees for the 2026 midterm cycle, including $5 million to V-PAC 'Victors, Not Victims' (May 8, 2026), contributions via his America PAC, $10 million each to the Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund, $5 million to a super PAC backing Vivek Ramaswamy's Ohio gubernatorial bid, and roughly $4.5 million combined to Texas state Republican committees including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, House Speaker Dustin Burrows, Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, and Judicial Fairness PAC.

In May 2026, London Mayor Sadiq Khan's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) blocked a proposed two-year, up to £50M Metropolitan Police contract with Palantir for AI-driven criminal-investigation data analysis, finding the Met had seriously considered only one supplier and failed to present a procurement strategy for approval - a 'clear and serious breach' of procurement rules. Palantir filed a High Court challenge in June 2026, alleging MOPAC acted unlawfully and irrationally by treating the company's 'values and ethics' as grounds for rejection and imposing an unlawful veto; MOPAC denies ethics were the basis and says the Met's process itself was unlawful and gave 'misleading and/or inconsistent information.' As of September 2026, Khan agreed to have his texts and emails searched as part of discovery, with 12+ MOPAC/GLA officials also designated document custodians; a full High Court hearing is scheduled for January 2027.

Italy's communications authority AGCOM announced a penalty exceeding €14 million against Cloudflare in January 2026 for failing to comply with anti-piracy regulations related to Piracy Shield. CEO Matthew Prince condemned the fine as 'a scheme to censor the internet,' criticizing it for having 'no judicial oversight,' no appeal process, and no transparency, and requiring services to block content globally not just in Italy. Prince threatened to discontinue free cybersecurity services for Italian users, remove all servers from Italian cities, scrap investment plans, and 'discontinue the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber-security services' Cloudflare was providing for the Milan Cortina Olympics in February 2026.

In Q1 2026, Cohere expanded into military AI, signing agreements with TKMS (Jan 13) and Hanwha Ocean (Mar 31) - the two competing bidders for Canada's up to $60 billion, 12-submarine Canadian Patrol Submarine Project - to build AI decision-support, engineering, and design tools for their rival bids. Cohere also partnered with Saab (Mar 23) to develop AI for the GlobalEye airborne early-warning surveillance system pursued for Canada, and with Thales for AI on patrol ships. Cohere made no public statement addressing the apparent conflict of representing both submarine bidders simultaneously.

Peter Thiel gave $3 million to the California Business Roundtable's campaign to defeat the proposed 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, a one-time 5% wealth tax on individuals with over $1 billion in assets. Thiel, worth an estimated $26 billion, would owe roughly $1.3 billion under the proposal. It was described as his biggest political donation in years, disclosed January 11, 2026.

In January-February 2026, Anthropic and the Pentagon reached a standoff over a $200 million contract. Anthropic demanded "human in the loop" restrictions - specifically that Claude not be used in "fully autonomous weapons (those that take humans out of the loop entirely)." CEO Amodei stated "frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons" and offered to work on R&D to improve reliability. The Pentagon demanded "all lawful use" language. Defense Secretary Hegseth gave a Friday 5pm deadline; Amodei refused. Trump ordered all agencies to cease Anthropic use and Pentagon designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk" - language normally reserved for foreign adversaries.

On December 30, 2025, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control removed three executives linked to the Intellexa commercial spyware consortium from its sanctions list. The individuals had been sanctioned by the Biden administration in 2024 for enabling spyware (including Predator, capable of one-click and zero-click device compromise) used to target U.S. government officials, journalists, policy experts, opposition politicians, and activists worldwide, as part of a broader effort under Executive Order 14093 to curb commercial spyware. Treasury and State Department officials offered only a vague characterization of the removal as a 'normal administrative process,' without publicly explaining what changed in the underlying conduct that had justified the original designations.

In December 2025, after sustained lobbying by CEO Jensen Huang, the Trump administration approved Nvidia's sale of advanced H200 AI chips to China with the U.S. government receiving a 25% cut of future sales. Huang met directly with President Trump on December 4 and with Republican senators in closed-door meetings. Senator Elizabeth Warren alleged Huang 'used donations and personal access' to influence policy, citing his attendance at a $1 million-per-plate Trump fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago and Nvidia's donations to Trump's White House ballroom project. Warren called the decision one that 'sells out American national security' and demanded Huang testify before Congress.

New York Times reported senior Anthropic employees discussing ways company could spend money to influence politics, with executives likely donating to new political network helmed by former Rep. Brad Carson (D-OK). As government contractor, Anthropic is legally barred from contributing to political campaigns.

In November 2025, NSO Group named David Friedman, Trump's former ambassador to Israel, as Executive Chairman. This followed an October 2025 acquisition by U.S.-based investors led by film producer Robert Simonds. The appointment raises concerns about NSO's potential re-entry into U.S. markets after being placed on the Entity List.

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.

In June-July 2025, during heightened tensions between Trump and Musk over fiscal policy, the Trump administration initiated a review of SpaceX's government contracts after Trump called for terminating Musk's federal contracts and accused him of being the 'most heavily subsidized businessman in history.' SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell held quiet meetings with White House officials to reaffirm SpaceX's role in U.S. strategic infrastructure. White House and Pentagon officials ultimately concluded SpaceX's deals were vital to core missions of DoD and NASA. Shotwell negotiates many of SpaceX's lucrative contracts with the U.S. military and owns a 0.3% stake ($1.2B net worth) in the company.

In May 2025, Musk left his Department of Government Efficiency role after publicly criticizing Trump's tax-and-spending bill, calling it a threat to DOGE's work. His 130-day tenure as a 'special government employee' was marked by legal setbacks, overstated savings claims, and significant controversy including 270,000+ federal job losses. His political involvement also caused Tesla owners to sell cars and contributed to declining profits.

During President Trump's May 2025 visit to Saudi Arabia, Oracle announced a $14 billion investment over 10 years—nearly 10x its previous $1.5 billion commitment. CEO Safra Catz explicitly credited 'the decisive actions and strong leadership of President Trump' for enabling the partnership. Catz served on Trump's 2016 transition team and currently serves on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

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.

NVIDIA Corporation made a seven-figure donation to President Donald Trump's $239 million inauguration. CEO Jensen Huang met with Trump at the White House, attended a $1 million per plate Mar-a-Lago dinner, and stated 'I'd be delighted to go see him and congratulate him.' After the Mar-a-Lago visit, plans for export controls on NVIDIA's H20 chip were paused, raising ethics concerns about quid-pro-quo arrangements.

In January 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made a personal $1 million donation to Trump's inauguration fund (Jan 3), attended the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol (Jan 20), and the next day stood alongside President Trump at a White House press conference to announce Stargate, a joint venture with Oracle and SoftBank planning to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure. This marked a stark contrast to Altman's 2016 blog post comparing Trump to Hitler.

On November 20, 2024 the US Department of Justice and SEC unsealed indictments and civil charges against Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani, and other senior executives of Adani Green Energy, alleging they orchestrated a multi-year scheme to pay approximately $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar power supply contracts while raising US investor capital based on misleading anti-corruption disclosures. Adani Green's US-listed bonds and ADRs traded under the disclosures. Adani Group denied the charges and called them 'baseless'. The indictment wiped tens of billions from Adani-listed entities' market caps.

In April 2024, the FTC issued a landmark regulation banning enforcement of non-compete agreements. In August 2024, a federal court struck down the regulation, ruling it was an overreach of statutory authority and that the regulation was 'arbitrary and capricious.' The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable sued, arguing 'the FTC exceeded its administrative authority' and that such economic significance should be decided by Congress, not an agency.