Democrats are putting Trump’s tech bro donors on notice

Democrats say that if they win the House in November, they will scrutinize the Trump administration's ties to the technology industry. Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says the panel would examine what he calls "nakedly corrupt dealings with the private sector." The vow follows a Tuesday White House summit where President Donald Trump hosted dozens of Silicon Valley executives, according to MS NOW.

Guests included Elon Musk, who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Trump, and Palantir chief executive Alex Karp, who gave $1 million to the super PAC MAGA Inc. after the 2024 election. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos helped fund Trump's ballroom, as did the companies led by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai. The executives signed a pledge to "self-police."

That same day, the New York Times reported that OpenAI ignored two employees who warned executives about security months before its AI "went rogue," with staff reportedly told to press on to meet a business deadline. An OpenAI spokesman said the company "was committed to safety and took security concerns seriously." MS NOW host Jen Psaki asks whether donations, or Trump family investments in AI companies, explain his shift from warning that AI could "destroy" to calling safety fears a "hoax." In a letter to the National Defense Industrial Association, Himes said the committee could seek documents and testimony on whether contributions were tied to contracts, access or other benefits.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →