Chief Govt Officer of Apple Tim Cook dinner (L) arrives on the White Home to attend a state dinner honoring French President Emmanuel Macron, in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2022.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Photographs
Apple ramped up its lobbying spending final 12 months, rising its complete for the 12 months by 44% in comparison with 2021, in line with public disclosures.
Although Apple’s lobbying spending grew essentially the most previously 12 months in comparison with friends within the business, it nonetheless spends far under different tech giants. Apple’s complete lobbying efforts got here to just about $9.4 million for all of 2022, a report for the corporate however slightly below Microsoft’s $9.8 million and Google’s $10.9 million.
Amazon and Fb-owner Meta topped the checklist by complete spend, doling out $19.7 million and $19.2 million, respectively. For Amazon, that was a roughly 2% improve in spend in comparison with 2021 and it was a 4.6% lower for Meta.
The 5 tech giants spent a mixed almost $69 million lobbying the federal authorities final 12 months, a 5% improve in comparison with 2021.
In 2022, tech giants confronted the prospect of bipartisan laws that will be extremely disruptive to their enterprise fashions. Such measures included antitrust payments that will prohibit giant platforms or on-line marketplaces from unfairly selling their very own merchandise over others listed on their boards, or forestall app shops from forcing builders to make use of their in-app fee system, from which they typically take a minimize.
These measures in the end by no means acquired a vote on the ground of both chamber of Congress — a proven fact that the payments’ sponsors have blamed not less than partially on an aggressive tech affect marketing campaign.
Apple’s public submitting exhibits it engaged on the antitrust payments within the fourth quarter, in addition to on points together with on-line privateness, taxes, semiconductor coverage, content material moderation, local weather change, immigration and LGBTQ points together with the Respect for Marriage Act. Lobbying disclosures don’t embrace particulars on what precisely firms advocated for of their discussions.
An Apple spokesperson was not instantly accessible to remark.
Different tech firms engaged on most of the similar points, although some additionally lobbied on subjects extra particular to their companies. For instance, Amazon engaged on cloud computing and the INFORM Shoppers Act, a invoice that not too long ago handed by way of Congress that seeks to discourage counterfeit items from being bought on-line.
Semiconductor firms additionally noticed huge will increase of their lobbying spending final 12 months as the federal government thought-about the CHIPS and Science Act, profitable laws that gives incentives to assist develop U.S. laptop chip manufacturing.
Intel, which has pledged to spend as much as $100 billion on a chip manufacturing plant in Ohio, ramped up its lobbying spend greater than 72% in comparison with final 12 months, totaling greater than $7 million. Micron, which made an identical pledge to construct a chip manufacturing facility in upstate New York, grew its lobbying spending by about 118% in comparison with 2021, totaling almost $4.2 million.
Crypto and fintech firms additionally noticed a marked improve in lobbying spending in 2022, a 12 months marked by crypto scandal, although many nonetheless spend a comparatively small quantity. Coinbase resumed lobbying efforts final 12 months after a protracted hiatus, in line with a public database. It is shortly grown its operations, spending $3.4 million in 2022. The Blockchain Affiliation, which represents a wide range of firms within the area and has solely lobbied for just a few years, grew its spending 111% in comparison with 2021.
One other firm that has been within the authorities’s crosshairs, TikTok proprietor ByteDance, noticed solely modest development in spending this 12 months, up about 4% from the 12 months prior at $4.9 million. Congress efficiently handed a ban of the app on authorities gadgets. It comes as the corporate seeks to succeed in a decision with the Committee on Overseas Funding within the U.S. to proceed operations whereas mitigating the chance of its connections to a Chinese language proprietor, which has raised alarms for intelligence officers and policymakers. After having its greatest lobbying quarter in Q2, topping $2 million, it dropped its spending under $1 million for the following two quarters.
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