Forget #Wall_Street – #Silicon_Valley is the new political power in Washington | Technology | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/03/silicon-valley-politics-lobbying-washington
The company spent just $80,000 on #lobbying in 2003. Today, its parent company, Alphabet, spends more on lobbying than any other corporation – $9.5m in the first half of 2017 alone and $15.4m the previous year. In 2013, the company signed a lease on a 55,000-square-foot office, roughly the same size as the White House, less than a mile away from the Capitol Building.
And it’s not just #Google. #Facebook, #Amazon, #Apple and #Microsoft – which was hamstrung by its lacklustre early efforts to court policymakers – have been pouring money into Washington.
“They are overwhelming Washington with money and lobbyists on both sides of the aisle,” said Robert McChesney, communications professor at the University of Illinois. “The Silicon Valley billionaires and CEOs are libertarian, low-tax deregulation buddies of the Koch brothers when it comes to talking to Republicans, and dope-smoking, gay rights activist hipsters when they mix with the Democrats.”