Headline after headline of CEOs and companies making over $1 million donations to the Trump Inauguration Fund — most recently Meta and Amazon — only signal the beginning of a dark future that mirrors the past. 

Sure, if you do not read into it, it’s merely these corporations and billionaires buying their way into policymaking. It is a dirty game to play, but it is not something unheard of, revolutionary or even remotely shocking. 

Lobbying is nothing new in the game of politics and that is ultimately what companies are doing, but this also signals an end of a chapter. 

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Though feigned social activism was once profitable to these companies, a natural backlash has companies fearing the loss of shareholders. Company after company has rolled back on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and shown a sudden disinterest in promoting Pride Month and Black History Month merch, with Target notably scaling back their Pride collection just last year.

Part of the cultural shift that brought awareness to the needs of different communities was online spaces such as X and Meta platforms being welcoming to different backgrounds. This meant regulation on hate speech, something that feels like the bare minimum. 

But the issue is that regulation on speech goes against the Trump branding; if you oppose free speech absolutism, you are pro-censorship and pro-propagandized news, which might be classified as “fake news” in Trump’s eyes.

And what is really truly ironic of all of this is that Trump has been complaining about “fake news” since he first ran for president in 2016, claiming the media is out to get him and that Hollywood and the Bay Area elites are against him. In a pre-Trump time, there was some merit to calling mainstream media “fake,” at least some of it. There is inherently propaganda when you are running a business such as CNN or Fox — a profit has to be turned somehow, and when you run for 24 hours a day, you have to exacerbate the smallest of things to keep viewers’ eyes on your channel.

But in some twisted way, Trump’s negative view on what he calls “fake news” is a message that has spawned an entire sector of its own. The Bay Area elites who once opposed Trump have started taking his side. Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg have donated to Trump as well as Apple and CEO Tim Cook. And so much can be said about Elon Musk buying his way into nearly every room Trump was in, even gaining access to other world leaders like Zelensky.

In most of these cases, I understand that partnering with Trump is simply a smart business practice at this point. It is still absolutely terrifying that Trump has turned so much of the country and the companies that really run the country in his favor in the span of 10 years.

Musk has consistently touted his X platform as a platform that champions free speech, but the phrase “free speech” in these spaces really functions as merely a dog whistle. “Cis” and “cisgender” are labeled as slurs on the platform and will get your account flagged, but there is no issue with using a racist, transphobic or homophobic slur. Popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp are breeding this same culture.

As of Jan. 7, 2025, Meta has updated their speech policies by terminating their “third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model,” which “works by leaving fact-checking up to the community,” per CBS News. In addition to this change, headlines have been circulating about Meta using a more moderate approach at targeted harassment and hate speech. Meta platforms will now not only allow for the use of slurs but also allow individuals to make claims that LGBTQIA+ individuals are mentally ill.

It is a sad reality we are living in where all these billionaires — including Apple’s Tim Cook, who is openly gay — are playing rally around the Trump flag. These companies’ support for Trump along with their recent changes to speech policies demonstrate their prioritization of company interests, even if it means harming marginalized communities like LGBTQIA+ people. 

Allowing these lax “free speech” policies on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X raises a serious concern about discerning real news from fake news, whether that headline is misleading, exacerbated or altogether made up. These platforms, once championed for bringing people together no matter the distance, now come across more concerned with protecting their bottom line rather than their users. Meta and X, your platforms carry a responsibility to protect users, and your end of the bargain is not being held up.