Report: Facebook Employees Have Donated 80 Times More to Biden Than Trump
A new analysis of Federal Election Commission campaign finance data has revealed that employees at some of America’s biggest tech companies contributed overwhelmingly to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Wired reviewed data released by the FEC and found that employees at Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle have contributed nearly 20 times as much money to Biden’s campaign as to President Donald Trump since the beginning of 2019.
The FEC requires individuals who contribute $200 or more to a presidential campaign to report their employer.
Employees at the six companies contributed $4.8 million to Biden and $239,527 to Trump.
The disparity between contributions to the two campaigns was most evident at Facebook.
The social media giant’s employees contributed 80 times more to the Democrat: $560,493 to Biden’s campaign compared with only $7,005 to Trump’s campaign.
The president and other Republicans have pointed to bias against conservatives by Facebook and other social media companies.
After Facebook removed a video from Trump’s official Facebook page in August, Trump campaign spokeswoman Courtney Parella told Vanity Fair it was “another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias against this president.”
“The rules are only enforced in one direction,” Parella said.
“Social media companies are not arbiters of truth.”
The largest contribution to Biden’s campaign came from Alphabet employees, who gave more than $1.7 million to the former vice president and only $23,566 to Trump.
Employees from Microsoft, Amazon and Apple also heavily contributed to Biden’s campaign. Microsoft employees contributed $913,318, Amazon employees contributed $775,897 and Apple employees contributed $542,020.
Tech employees have a history of contributing to Democratic presidential candidates and overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Facebook employees donated $278,624 to Clinton in 2016 and only $2,166 to Trump, while Alphabet employees donated $917,752 to Clinton and $11,825 to Trump.
The Trump administration has pursued policies to curb Big Tech’s power, and the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have launched broad antitrust investigations into the tech companies.
“As a Nation, we must foster and protect diverse viewpoints in today’s digital communications environment where all Americans can and should have a voice,” the president said in an executive order signed in May.
“We must seek transparency and accountability from online platforms, and encourage standards and tools to protect and preserve the integrity and openness of American discourse and freedom of expression.”
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