But their counterparts in the US – often in the very same companies – are putting their money behind Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in the upcoming US election.
The top ten contributors among tech companies have donated a total of $42 million this time to election funding, of which $32 million, or 76%, went to the Democrats.
Most of the contributions are routed through what are called political action committees (PACs) within companies. The contributions are by employees on a voluntary basis, and are not from corporate funds.
Of the $2.8 million that Apple has given towards election funding, 86% has gone to the Democratic party. For Amazon and Cisco too, it’s over 80%, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org), a US research group that tracks money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is the biggest tech donor in 2020. Its political donations this year has jumped to $12 million, from $9.2 million for the 2016 election. And 75% of that has gone to the Democrats.
Microsoft is the second biggest donor, spending $7.4 million, of which $5.8 million, or 78%, went to the Democrats.
Cognizant, which is headquartered in the US but whose origins and biggest base are in India, spent $210,407 in 2020, of which $150,280, or 71%, went to the Democrats, and $58,715 went to the Republicans.
Vivek Wadhwa, distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s college of engineering at Silicon Valley, said majority of the employees are open-minded liberals. “By and large, Silicon Valley, and California is Democrat,” he said.
Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe Distinguished Professor at Tuck at Dartmouth, said the stock-in-trade of American tech giants like Google and Microsoft is talent, and they strongly support US government policy to attract high-calibre talent from abroad to come to Silicon Valley.
