Who Owns Microsoft

Microsoft 🐔🐔

Capitulation Rank: Compromising
Category: Online Services & Platforms 
Market Cap: $3.69 trillion

In January 2025, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told the Wall Street Journal how “impressed” he was with Trump and his new administration. “I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” Gates said of the president after dining for three hours with him at Mar-a-Lago.

Microsoft donated $1 million to support Trump’s inauguration and is also part of the Big-Tech consortium that helped fund the president’s $300 million demolition of the East Wing.

In the past, Gates — who no longer calls the shots at the company — had been far more critical of Trump. But his pivot in 2025 to a more favorable stance may have more to do with the billionaire’s other interests, including efforts to gain government approval to build a $4 billion demonstration nuclear-power plant in rural Wyoming.  Throughout the first year of the administration, Microsoft aligned itself with the Trump administration’s artificial-intelligence priorities, allowing it to secure a $6 billion cloud deal to support federal AI initiatives.

By and large the company has kept its head out of politics since Satya Nadella became CEO and chairman more than a decade ago — though it dropped a law firm that capitulated to Trump’s demands by offering pro-bono representation for White House causes. And after the inauguration, Nadella told a CNBC interviewer that he hoped that the Trump administration is not forming an oligarchy. 

But Microsoft’s entanglements with OpenAI might tip the company further toward capitulation: It invested heavily in the artificial-intelligence entity, which is dependent on government contracts and policy favors. Microsoft is also lobbying the government to tread lightly on any antitrust actions focused on its cloud computing, software bundling, and artificial intelligence partnerships — further evidence that the company may weaken any resolve to remain independent from Trump.

DEI Doublespeak:

Microsoft has maintained a public commitment to DEI. However, a Harvard study released in March 2025 found that the company reduced DEI references by 76 percent in its 2024 annual report and eliminated identity-group mentions entirely. This change occurred before Trump executive order 14173, which revoked federal DEI mandates. This shift, the study concludes, “reflects a move to generalized inclusion language amid legal scrutiny.”

What It Owns:

Computing hardware and software (including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Store, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Network), online search (including Bing), and online platforms (including Github and LinkedIn). Microsoft is also the publisher of the Microsoft Operating System and its associated productivity software (Edge, Excel, Exchange, Office, PowerPoint, Teams and Word). In addition to these core products, Microsoft owns subsidiaries in the hardware and video-game industry (including Activision Blizzard, Compulsion Games and Halo Studios). Microsoft has a substantial revenue-sharing agreement with OpenAI.

Money & Influence Game:

Microsoft paid lobbyists $10,353,764 in 2024, and Microsoft employees made $14,666,232 in contributions to political candidates (2024 cycle). (SOURCE: Center for Responsive Politics)