Big Tech Goes to War

In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the world of the “military-industrial complex” — an economic system that puts the war economy above all else, even the needs of a democracy.

Eisenhower said that the “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist” when big government strikes lucrative defense deals with big industry. He called on “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to ensure that U.S. national security aligned with peaceful, democratic goals.

Fast forward 65 years to the Trump White House and Eisenhower’s warning remains a major concern — only the complex has changed from an industrial one to a technological one. 

Despite their earlier commitments to do no harm, Big Tech’s largest firms are now ever-ready to supply the U.S. government with the high-tech tools it needs to go to war against Donald Trump’s imagined enemies, both foreign and domestic.

During his 2026 State of the Union address, Trump called on Congress to deliver a record $1 trillion in defense spending. This would include sizable increases to “upgrade” the military’s tech infrastructure. The White House is also fighting for more than $100 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including spending to beef up surveillance of immigrant communities and others in the United States whose mere existence the president doesn’t like. 

Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk — who are perched like vultures in a now-infamous photo from Trump’s 2025 inauguration — are eager to cash in. 

Their companies, Meta, Amazon, Google and X/SpaceX, have a cumulative worth of more than $9 trillion, with annual profits in the hundreds of billions. But they’re always in need of more gristle and see fit to feast on Trump’s military ambitions.

It’s a drastic pivot away from previous administrations, which saw many of Silicon Valley’s major players working to steer clear of the government’s war efforts.

Zuckerberg’s war games

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta once touted language in its corporate policies banning the use of its artificial intelligence in weapons. It has since removed such wording, allowing it to profit from using its virtual-reality glasses to train soldiers for battle. 

In 2025, the tech giant began recruiting former military and national-security officials to help pitch the Pentagon and DHS on its virtual-reality and artificial-intelligence technology. It also opened its Llama AI model for military use.

To show that it’s willing to play nice with a Trump administration handing out contracts, Meta has complied with hundreds of administrative subpoenas from DHS, which is eager to investigate and harass the president’s online critics.

Bezos blasts off

Jeff Bezos-owned companies are already making billions doing business with the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior and the NSA. 

Amazon technology hosts many of the systems that DHS and ICE use to spy on law-abiding residents of the United States. This partnership persists despite protests from many of the company’s shareholders.

These multimillion-dollar contracts provide cloud infrastructure for data storage, analytics and biometric systems, including more than $250 million from DHS to host many of the databases and systems used to track, monitor and deport immigrants.

Bezos’ space-exploration company Blue Origin is pursuing billions more in U.S. Space Force contracts to launch a network of top-secret surveillance and military satellites into orbit.

Google does evil

Despite pledging that he would not allow anyone to use company technology to harm people, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is now seeking profits in destruction.

The company is already doing business with ICE while vying with other tech giants for government contracts involving cloud-computing services, artificial-intelligence tools and state-surveillance technology. 

Google is participating in a $9 billion joint Pentagon contract alongside Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle. It’s also under contract to provide the tech at the center of federal projects to upgrade the “virtual wall” that surveils the U.S. border.

Musk soldiers on

Elon Musk has also joined the military space race. His rocket and satellite company SpaceX is a primary contractor with the U.S. Space Force, and holds a $1.8 billion classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Office.

SpaceX won launch contracts for five of seven national-security missions with the Space Force for fiscal year 2026. The five missions have a combined value of $714 million, according to Space Systems Command.

Musk’s artificial-intelligence venture, xAI, has been actively pursuing government contracts and in July 2025 secured a deal worth up to $200 million to help the Pentagon adopt advanced artificial-intelligence capabilities. 

Silicon Valley flip-flop 

With so much money in the offing, Meta, Amazon, Google and X have shown us their willingness to aid Trump’s mega-militarization of the federal budget in exchange for billions in profits.

Rather than challenge a dictatorial regime, they’ve contributed tens of millions of dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign, inaugural ceremonies and other schemes, with execs regularly Lear-jetting to Mar-a-Lago to offer support and curry favor. 

The message behind their money is clear: “Give us military and surveillance contracts and we’ll help spread Trump’s authoritarian gospel to billions of people who use our platforms every day.”

It’s a different compact than the one Eisenhower warned us against — but one with similarly devastating impacts.

We must understand how such accumulation of “misplaced power” makes it next to impossible for these tech giants to fulfill the social compact once embodied in many of their founding visions of a more connected, inclusive and peaceful democracy.

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