Big Tech Company Employees Give 90 Percent Of Political Donations To Democrats, According To New Poll
The staff at the biggest tech companies in the world have largely donated to Democratic candidates over the years, according to a new report by Business Insider. Teaming up with political data firm GovPredict, Business Insider took a look at political data drawn from employees of Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix — and the results definitely skewed toward the Democratic party.
The data in the poll was gathered over a period of 14 years. It measures the political contributions of employees, as recorded in campaign filings. It does not, however, indicate company-level donations to candidates, which is an entirely different matter.
According to GovPredict, the results are overwhelmingly Democrat. Over 90 percent of donations made since 2004 by tech company employees has gone to Democratic nominees and groups. That’s a significant chunk of the estimated $40 million experts say has been donated over the past 14 years.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has the most generous staff in terms of donations. They handed over $16.3 million to Democrats. Amazon, the second largest funder, brought in $6.7 million. Apple came in third with $5.7 million, while Facebook and Netflix rounded out the bottom with $3.9 million and $3.7 million donated to Democrats, respectively.
By comparison, Republican donations were paltry at best. Google was again the leader, with parent company Alphabet donating $1.7 million to Republicans. Amazon gave conservatives $732,000, while Apple forked over $587,000. Facebook was right behind with $580,000 donated to Republican candidates and causes.
Netflix trailed the pack with a modest $75,000 in Republican contributions, in stark contrast to their donations to Democrats. A whopping 98 percent of the donations from Netflix workers went to the Democratic party.
Investors in tech stocks are nervously watching as the Trump administration continues to press China on trade https://t.co/gMobogys5r
— Fast Company (@FastCompany) December 11, 2018
This news is unlikely to improve relations between Republicans and Silicon Valley. Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of Google, Amazon, and other tech giants, calling out the bias of these large technology firms — and he’s not alone, with numerous Republicans backing his claims.
The fact that Trump is also seriously looking at anti-trust proceedings against Google, Amazon, and Facebook is probably not helping their dynamic either. Google has long been a source of aggravation for Trump, who has repeatedly accused the company of faking search results.
Back in August of this year, Trump insisted that the searches on Google only featured certain news sites that he considered unreliable, while websites that he favored were largely left by the wayside.
“I think Google has really taken advantage of a lot of people, and I think that’s a very serious thing. That’s a very serious charge,” Trump said in a report by the Associated Press. He also stated that Google, Twitter, Facebook and other tech companies “better be careful, because you can’t do that to people.”
Google categorically denied claims of tampering with search results, saying “We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.”
