Who Owns Google

Alphabet (Google) 🐔🐔🐔

Capitulation Rank: Capitulating
Category: Online Platforms & Streaming 
Market Cap: $2.17 trillion 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai joined the cowards’ row of Silicon Valley CEOs during Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration and has since shown his company’s support for the president’s various schemes. Prior to the swearing in, Alphabet announced that it would make a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee.  It later threw in an extra $22 million to fund the demolition of the East Wing. 

Pichai’s spending is all part of his effort to woo the White House on a number of policy fronts. Among his priorities is seeing that the Trump Justice Department abandons two high-profile antitrust lawsuits aimed at breaking Google’s market power. Pichai is also banking on ensuring the administration gives his company a seat at the table when it comes to shaping AI policy — and winning lucrative government AI contracts — in a Trump-controlled Washington. 

Both Apple and Google buckled to pressure from the Department of Justice, removing apps from their online stores that allow users to track the location of ICE activity in their communities. Google and its subsidiary video platform YouTube are running ads for DHS  and its ICE recruitment campaign.

Google-owned YouTube decided in September 2025 to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit Trump brought against the platform after it suspended his account following his incitement of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. The million-dollar payoff implies the tech company was wrong for deplatforming Trump as he orchestrated a violent uprising against American democracy.  

In a company-wide meeting in February 2025, Google announced plans to scrap the tech giant’s diversity initiatives. The Google Calendar also “disappeared” Black History Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pride Month, Women’s History Month and other significant observances. Google also announced that its Maps tool would now give preference to Trump’s jingoist name — the “Gulf of America” — for the Gulf of Mexico. Pichai told Google staff that the company “deeply cared” about workforce diversity but that it now had to comply with a Trump executive order directing federal agencies and contractors to dismantle their DEI work.

Google goes to war
Alongside other tech firms, Google is increasingly seeking to profit from the U.S. military-industrial complex. President Trump’s 2025 domestic policy bill allocated a record $1 trillion for defense spending, including sizable increases to “upgrade” the military’s tech infrastructure — including digital command, control, communications, computers and intelligence  technologies.

Google has also complied with hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, including one that demanded a student activist and journalist’s personal data — including his credit-card and bank-account numbers. 

It’s no wonder Google caved. The company is 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.

What It Owns:

Online services (including AdScape, AdSense, AdWords, Blogger, Chrome, Cloud, Flights, Gmail, Google Search, Shopping, Maps, Nest, Translate, Waze and Workspace); online streaming (including YouTube Music and TV); wired and wireless telecommunications services and products (including Fitbit, Google Fiber and Pixel); other (including DeepMind AI, Gemini AI, Jigsaw, Sycamore quantum computing, Verily, Waymo self-driving technology and Wing).

Money & Influence Game:

Alphabet paid lobbyists $14,790,000 in 2024, and Alphabet employees made $20,604,525 in contributions to political candidates (2024 cycle). (SOURCE: Center for Responsive Politics)