In a stunning act of blatant political thuggery, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) sent fiery letters to Big Tech founders who donated to Trump’s Inauguration Fund, threatening them over their attempt to curry favor with the new president by helping him with his inauguration. Those letters went to, amongst others, Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman.
The letters were highly threatening thuggery in that 1) Liz Warren never sent such letters to founders and CEOs who donated to Biden’s Inaugural Fund, and 2) she essentially accused them of corruption and threatened lawfare because they donated to the Inaugural Fund for the Republican President.
In her letter to Bezos, Warren said, “In the two months since the election, Big Tech companies including Amazon have made milliondollar gifts to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund in what appears to be an effort to influence and sway the actions and policies of the incoming administration. Specifically, on December 12th, 2024 a company spokesperson confirmed your intention to donate $1 million to the inaugural fund.”
She continued, “Big Tech companies have come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators for antitrust violations, violations of privacy, and harms to workers, consumers, and competition.2 At the same time, lawmakers in both parties have voiced support for regulating tech platforms, in recognition that there is currently no comprehensive set of rules for the tech sector.”
She added, “We are concerned that your company and other Big Tech donors are using your massive contributions to the inaugural fund to cozy up to the incoming Trump administration in an effort to avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor. You have a clear and direct interest in obtaining favors from the incoming administration: your company and many other Big Tech donors are already the subject of ongoing federal investigations and regulatory actions.”
She later added, in quite threatening fashion, “It is critical that federal regulators continue to evenhandedly apply competition, consumer protection, anti-discrimination laws and any other rule or law that applies to your company. But the industry’s efforts suggest that Big Tech companies are trying to curry favor and skirt the rules.”
She then said, dropping an implicit threat of a corruption investigation, “This would be good for billionaire tech executives, but it is bad for America: if left unchecked, Big Tech monopolies will threaten consumers’ rights, run roughshod over workers, and squash competition while stifling innovation. These donations raise questions about corruption and the influence of corporate money on the Trump administration, and Congress and the public deserve answers.”
Her letter to Mr. Altman said much the same thing, changing only his name and where it said “OpenAI” instead of Amazon. Commenting on the letter in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Altman noted the highly politicized nature of the letter and said, “funny, they never sent me one of these for contributing to democrats…”
He added, “it was a personal contribution as you state; i am confused about the questions given that my company did not make a decision.” A commenter said, “I appreciate that you posted this. This was a bullying tactic by legislators. It’s important for the public to understand how these tactics are used.”
Watch Warren end up making a fool of herself in Mr. Hegseth’s Senate hearing here: