Who Owns the Media: Microsoft

Microsoft 🐔

Capitulation Rank: Vulnerable
Category: Online Services & Platforms 
Market Cap: $2.929 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 as a company had donated $1 million to support Trump’s inauguration and also met with the president at Mar-a-Lago, but are keeping a much lower profile than the other tech giants whose bosses stood prominently by the president’s side on Jan. 20, 2025. In the past, Gates, who is no longer calling the shots at the company, had been far more critical of Trump. But his recent pivot to a more favorable stance may have more to do with billionaire’s other interests, including efforts to gain government approval to build a $4 billion demonstration nuclear-power plant in rural Wyoming.

By and large the company has kept its head out of politics since CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella took over a decade ago. Though it did drop a law firm that agreed to capitulate to Trump’s demands and offer 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. 

If anything might tip the company toward capitulation, it’s Microsoft’s entanglements with OpenAI: It invested heavily in the artificial-intelligence entity, with billions of dollars in government contracts on the line. The company’s ongoing fight against government antitrust efforts may also soften any criticism it might have of the current regime. For the moment this remains speculation, but offers enough evidence to suggest the company is weakening its 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), 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)