OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attends a session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos on January 18, 2024. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
“President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead,” said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman became the latest tech titan to make an explicit overture to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump when he confirmed Friday that he intends to make a $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
The news comes after Meta confirmed Wednesday that it has donated $1 million to the fund, and it was reported Thursday that Amazon intends to make a $1 million donation. The Washington Post characterized Altman’s move as “the latest attempt to gain favor from a leading technology executive in an industry that has long been a target of Trump’s vitriol.”
Altman said in a statement that was sent to multiple outlets that “President Trump will lead our country into the age of AI, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead.”
The donation from Meta follows a trip by Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg down to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club to meet with the president-elect last month. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s executive chairman, is slated to head to Florida to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago next week, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg and Trump have not always been on the best of terms—Meta temporarily booted Trump from Instagram and Facebook following his comments regarding the January 6 insurrection, and Trump threatened Zuckerberg with lifetime incarceration if Trump perceived that Zuckerberg was interfering in the 2024 election—but Zuckerberg made entreaties to the then-candidate this past summer when he described Trump’s response to his assassination attempt as “badass.”
Zuckerberg and Meta refrained from donating to Trump’s inauguration fund in 2017, and to President Joe Biden’s inauguration fund in 2021, according to TheWall Street Journal.
In response to the news that Meta donated to Trump’s inauguration fund this time, the watchdog group Public Citizenwrote: “Shocker! Another tech bro billionaire trying to buy his way into Trump’s good graces. Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. $1 million to the man who threatened Zuckerberg with life in prison. Grow a spine.”
Journalists Mehdi Hasan described the move as “bending both knees to Trump.”
Bezos also chafed against Trump during his first presidency. Trump has repeatedly criticized The Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, for its coverage of him. In legal proceedings, Amazon also accused Trump of swaying the bidding process when the Pentagon chose Microsoft over Amazon for a lucrative contract because of Trump’s disdain for Bezos. However, in a move that was viewed as a signal to Trump, Bezos blocked the Post from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris just before last month’s election.
Margaret O’Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington who focuses on the high-tech economy, said during an interview with NPR the fact that support for Trump isn’t happening quietly “is something new.”
“It’s just a recognition that there’s not much to be gained in outspoken opposition, but perhaps there is something to be gained by being very clear about your support and hope that Trump does well,” she said.
Steven Donziger speaks at a “Free Donziger” rally held in front of the Manhattan Court House in New York City on October 1, 2021. (Photo: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“We are deeply concerned about the chilling effect this case will have on all advocates working on behalf of other frontline communities, victims of human rights violations, and those seeking environmental justice.”
More than 30 Democratic members of Congress on Wednesday called on outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden to pardon environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who endured nearly 1,000 days in prison and house arrest after successfully representing Ecuadoreans harmed by Big Oil’s pollution of the Amazon rainforest.
In a letter to Biden led by Rep. Jim McGovern, (D-Mass.), 33 House and Senate Democrats plus Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont noted the “troubling legal irregularities” in Donziger’s case, which have been “criticized as unconstitutional or illegal by three federal judges, 68 Nobel laureates, and five high-level jurists from the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations.”
Donziger represented a group of Ecuadorean farmers and Indigenous people in a 1990s lawsuit against Texaco—which was later acquired by Chevron—over the oil company’s deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of carcinogenic waste into the Amazon. He played a key role in winning a $9.5 billion settlement against Chevron in Ecuadorian courts.
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However, Chevron fought Donziger in the U.S. court system, and when the attorney refused to disclose privileged client information to the company, federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan—who was invested in Chevron—held him in misdemeanor contempt of court. Loretta Preska, Kaplan’s handpicked judge to preside over Donziger’s contempt trial, is affiliated with the Chevron-funded Federalist Society.
Donziger’s case drew worldwide attention and solidarity, with human rights experts and free speech groups joining progressive U.S. lawmakers in demanding his release. He was released in April 2022 after 993 days in prison and house arrest.
“Donziger is the only lawyer in U.S. history to be subject to any period of detention on a misdemeanor contempt of court charge,” the 34 lawmakers wrote. “We believe that the legal case against Mr. Donziger, as well as the excessively harsh nature of the punishment against him, are directly tied to his prior work against Chevron. We do not make this accusation lightly or without evidentiary support.”
The legislators warned:
Notwithstanding the personal hardship, this unprecedented legal process has imposed on Mr. Donziger and his family, we are deeply concerned about the chilling effect this case will have on all advocates working on behalf of other frontline communities, victims of human rights violations, and those seeking environmental justice. Those who try to help vulnerable communities will feel as though tactics of intimidation—at the hands of powerful corporate interests, and, most troublingly, the U.S. courts—can succeed in stifling robust legal representation when it is needed most. This is a dangerous signal to send.
“Pardoning Mr. Donziger,” the lawmakers added, “would send a powerful message to the world that billion-dollar corporations cannot act with impunity against lawyers and their clients who defend the public interest.”
The lawmakers join more than 100 environmental and human rights groups that have urged Biden to pardon Donziger.
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In an April opinion piece published by Common Dreams, Donziger contended that “I need this pardon because I am the only person in U.S. history to be privately prosecuted by a corporation.”
“More specifically, the government (via a pro-corporate judge) gave a giant oil company (Chevron) the power to prosecute and lock up its leading critic,” he continued. “As a result of this unprecedented and frightening private prosecution, I still cannot travel out of the country and I have been prohibited from meeting with clients I have represented for over three decades. Nor can I practice law, maintain a bank account, or earn a livelihood.”
“No matter where one stands on the political spectrum,” Donziger added, “we should all be able to agree that what happened to me should not happen to anybody in any country that adheres to the rule of law.”
The appeal for a Donziger pardon comes amid a wave of eleventh-hour pleas from lawmakers for Biden to grant clemency to figures ranging from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier—often described as the nation’s longest-jailed political prisoner—and federal death row inmates including Billie Jerome Allen, who advocates say was wrongly convicted of murder.
Amazion founder Jeff Bezos participates in a discussion during a Milestone Celebration dinner September 13, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The total wealth of billionaires increased by 121% from 2015-24.
Driven largely by the accumulation of massive wealth by the richest people in the United States, the Swiss wealth manager UBS said Thursday the assets of billionaires around the world more than doubled over the past decade.
Between 2015-24, the total wealth of billionaires increased by 121%, from $6.3 trillion to $14 trillion.
Meanwhile, the MSCI AC World Index of global equities, which measures the performance of more than 3,000 stocks from both developed and emerging markets, rose by 73%.
The planet’s total gross domestic product is about $105.4 trillion, with a population of just over 8 billion, underscoring the extreme concentration of wealth among the very richest people.
The number of billionaires rose from 1,757 to 2,682 over the past decade, while the wealthiest people in the world boasted significant gains over just the past year.
Billionaires’ wealth jumped by about 17% in 2024, with the accumulation of wealth among the richest people in the U.S. offsetting a decline in China.
U.S. billionaires amassed wealth gains that were 27.6% higher than the previous year, accumulating a total of $5.8 trillion—more than 40% of international billionaire wealth.
The tax cuts pushed through by President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican Party in 2017 are still in effect in the U.S. Tax policy analysts have found that the law was skewed to the rich, with households in the top 1% of incomes expecting to receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025 compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for people in the bottom 60%.
As Common Dreams reported this week, the top 12 U.S. billionaires now control $2 trillion. The wealth of the four richest people in the U.S.—Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—has hit $1 trillion.
This article was originally posted 6/12/24 but was deleted probably by mistake.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies before a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on January 31, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In the blind sprint to win on AI, Meta and the other tech giants have lost their way,” said a leader at Environment America.
Environmental advocates this week responded with concern to Meta looking for nuclear power developers to help the tech giant add 1-4 gigawatts of generation capacity in the United States starting in the early 2030s.
Meta—the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and more—released a request for proposals to identify developers, citing its artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and sustainability objectives. It is “seeking developers with strong community engagement, development, …permitting, and execution expertise that have development opportunities for new nuclear energy resources—either small modular reactors (SMR) or larger nuclear reactors.”
The company isn’t alone. As TechCrunch reported: “Microsoft is hoping to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island by 2028. Google is betting that SMR technology can help it deliver on its AI and sustainability goals, signing a deal with startup Kairos Power for 500 megawatts of electricity. Amazon has thrown its weight behind SMR startup X-Energy, investing in the company and inking two development agreements for around 300 megawatts of generating capacity.”
In response to Meta’s announcement, Johanna Neumann, Environment America Research & Policy Center’s senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, said: “The long history of overhyped nuclear promises reveals that nuclear energy is expensive and slow to build all while still being inherently dangerous. America already has 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that we don’t have a storage solution for.”
“Do we really want to create more radioactive waste to power the often dubious and questionable uses of AI?” Neumann asked. “In the blind sprint to win on AI, Meta and the other tech giants have lost their way. Big Tech should recommit to solutions that not only work but pose less risk to our environment and health.”
“Data centers should be as energy and water efficient as possible and powered solely with new renewable energy,” she added. “Without those guardrails, the tech industry’s insatiable thirst for energy risks derailing America’s efforts to get off polluting forms of power, including nuclear.”
In a May study, the Electric Power Research Institute found that “data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030—more than double the amount currently used.” The group noted that “AI queries require approximately 10 times the electricity of traditional internet searches and the generation of original music, photos, and videos requires much more.”
Meta is aiming to get the process started quickly: The intake form is due by January 3 and initial proposals are due February 7. It comes after a rare bee species thwarted Meta’s plans to build a data center powered by an existing nuclear plant.
Following the nuclear announcement, Meta and renewable energy firm Invenergy on Thursday announced a deal for 760 megawatts of solar power capacity. Operations for that four-state project are expected to begin no later than 2027.
A view of Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California, United States on March 23, 2024 [Tayfun Coşkun – Anadolu Agency]
A damning report, “Palestinian Digital Rights, Genocide, and Big Tech Accountability”, by 7amleh, a Palestinian-led non-profit organisation that is focused on protecting the human rights of Palestinians, has laid bare the disturbing and active role that major online platforms and big tech companies play in perpetuating human rights abuses against Palestinians. While the world watches the horrors unfold in Gaza, the role of these digital accomplices cannot be ignored. The report highlights that platforms like Meta, X, YouTube and tech giants Google and Amazon have enabled, facilitated and even profited from these atrocities, effectively shielding war crimes under a digital smokescreen.
The findings are a harrowing indictment of how big tech companies, under the guise of neutrality, have become active participants in censorship, disinformation and incitement to violence. They have provided crucial infrastructure that underpins Israel’s military actions, allowing their platforms to be weaponised, silencing Palestinian voices while amplifying hate speech and calls for genocide. The complicity of these platforms is not a mere oversight; it is an entrenched system of deliberate decision-making that prioritises profits over human rights.
Systematic censorship of Palestinian voices
At the heart of the report’s findings is a shocking pattern of systematic censorship targeting Palestinian voices. Between October 2023 and July 2024, over 1,350 instances of censorship were documented on major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. These platforms disproportionately targeted Palestinian journalists, activists and human rights defenders, with Meta’s platforms being among the worst offenders. The censorship took many forms: accounts were suspended, content takedowns became routine and distribution of pro-Palestinian narratives was heavily restricted.
Meta’s manipulative algorithm changes played a key role in this censorship. The report reveals that during the ongoing war in Gaza, Meta altered its content moderation policies to lower the threshold for flagging Palestinian content, reducing the accuracy of its filters and triggering unnecessary takedowns. For Palestinian content, Meta’s filters operated with a mere 25 per cent certainty of a violation, compared to the usual 80 per cent applied elsewhere. These so-called “temporary risk response measures” were never lifted, allowing for an outsized level of scrutiny on Palestinian content creators. This is not an isolated incident – it’s a calculated, discriminatory policy that silences marginalised voices and hinders the free flow of information at a time when it’s needed the most.
As 7amleh’s report highlights, Meta’s broken promises to safeguard free speech, coupled with its biased content moderation, exacerbated the situation for Palestinians. Human Rights Watch had already condemned Meta for its systemic censorship of Palestinian voices during the war, with over 1,050 instances of content removal on Facebook and Instagram. In nearly all cases, this censorship targeted peaceful, pro-Palestinian content while allowing violent, anti-Palestinian content to flourish unchecked. Comments like “Free Palestine”, “Stop the Genocide” and “Ceasefire Now” were removed under Meta’s spam guidelines, reflecting a dangerous double standard that stifles legitimate political discourse.
Platforms as instruments of genocide
The report makes clear that online platforms are not simply neutral forums but have become instruments of incitement to genocide. Between October 2023 and July 2024, over 3,300 instances of harmful content – including incitement to genocide – were documented, the majority on X and Facebook. These platforms allowed high-level Israeli officials and other users to openly call for the extermination of Palestinians, dehumanising them as “sub-humans”, “animals” and worse. This genocidal rhetoric wasn’t limited to obscure corners of the internet. It was promoted, amplified and left unchallenged by the very platforms that claim to be committed to community standards and human rights.
For instance, on X, a December 2023 post by the deputy mayor of Jerusalem described blindfolded Palestinian detainees as “ants” and called for burying them alive. Although this specific post was eventually removed, countless others like it remain, fuelling a climate of violence and dehumanisation against Palestinians. This failure to combat hate speech directly contravenes international law, particularly in light of the International Court of Justice’s January 2024 order, which directed Israel to prevent and punish incitement to genocide.
These platforms are not just failing in their duty to protect free speech; they are actively facilitating the spread of genocidal propaganda. In the case of Meta, the report details how over 9,500 takedown requests from the Israeli government were sent to Meta between October and November 2023, with a shocking 94 per cent compliance rate. This high level of cooperation with a state actively committing war crimes raises serious concerns about the ethical boundaries of these companies. Meta’s decision to comply with such requests without transparency or accountability reveals a deeper issue: these platforms are willing to become tools of state oppression when the price is right.
The role of Big Tech: Project Nimbus and the automation of killing
Beyond the sphere of social media, Google and Amazon’s collaboration with the Israeli military under Project Nimbus casts an even darker shadow over the tech industry’s role in this conflict. The $1.2 billion cloud computing contract, as the report highlights, provides critical infrastructure to power Israel’s AI-driven Lavender and Gospel targeting systems – systems that are directly linked to the mass civilian casualties in Gaza.
The Lavender system, in particular, functions as a tool for automated killings, identifying targets based on massive data inputs and feeding them into the Israeli military’s bombing campaigns. The report describes how Lavender alone identified over 37,000 potential targets, contributing to the deaths of thousands of civilians, including women and children. By providing cloud services to facilitate this mass-scale targeting, Google and Amazon are directly implicated in these violations of international law. Despite mounting global pressure, both companies continue to support Israel’s military operations under Project Nimbus, even as the civilian death toll in Gaza rises.
Hate speech and disinformation: A coordinated assault on truth
The report goes on to document a deluge of hate speech and disinformation campaigns, often spearheaded by Israeli officials and amplified by online platforms. These campaigns, which include the systematic dissemination of dehumanising content on Telegram, X and YouTube, have targeted Palestinians both inside Gaza and across the diaspora. The report cites three million instances of violent content in Hebrew aimed at Palestinians on X alone, much of it coordinated by Israeli state actors.
Perhaps most troubling is the Israeli government’s influence operation known as STOIC, which ran a disinformation campaign targeting US and Canadian lawmakers to undermine the work of The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). This campaign, orchestrated with the help of AI, spread false narratives that led to the defunding of UNRWA, cutting off critical humanitarian aid to Palestinians. This is not merely a failure of moderation but an example of how platforms can be weaponised for state-driven disinformation, with devastating consequences for innocent civilians.
Profiting from genocide: Advertising amidst war crimes
As if censorship and disinformation weren’t enough, the report also exposes how platforms like Facebook have profited from harmful advertisements promoting violence against Palestinians. The investigation found that Facebook ran ads calling for the assassination of pro-Palestinian activists and the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank. Meta profited from these campaigns, further entrenching its complicity in the human rights violations unfolding in Gaza.
Meanwhile, YouTube ran ads from the Israeli government that used graphic imagery to sway public opinion in favour of its military actions in Gaza. Despite YouTube’s policies against violent content, these ads flooded social media with incendiary narratives, particularly in Europe and the US, contributing to the normalisation of war crimes under the guise of counter-terrorism.
Time for accountability
The findings of this report should compel the international community to act. It is no longer acceptable for tech companies to hide behind vague policies and empty commitments to free speech while facilitating the mass killing and silencing of a besieged population. The complicity of Meta, X, YouTube, Google and Amazon in these atrocities must be brought into the spotlight and held accountable for their role in enabling these crimes.
These platforms are not neutral arbiters of truth – they are corporations driven by profit, willing to accommodate genocidal regimes and turn a blind eye to the suffering of millions if it serves their bottom line. As the report makes clear, it is time for the world to demand that these companies stop profiting from the destruction of Palestinian lives. The silence and complicity of big tech are unforgivable, and they must not be allowed to escape responsibility any longer.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
