CA Updates, Big Tech's Big Ugly Handouts in Trump Budget Bill

Welcome back to The Dispatch from The Tech Oversight Project, your weekly updates on all things tech accountability. Follow us on Twitter at @Tech_Oversight and @techoversight.bsky.social on Bluesky.

🥊 TAKING THE FIGHT TO BIG TECH: “Public opinion is on our side.” Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project, appeared at Capitol Weekly’s California AI conference earlier this month and appeared on a panel face-to-face with Big Tech lobbyists to talk about the growing power of the tech accountability movement in California and across the country.

Big Tech lobbyists want us to take them at their word on AI while refusing basic transparency and oversight. But as Sacha argued, it’s time to face facts: They’re not going to self-regulate. That’s why we need to protect Congress and state lawmakers’ ability to pass laws that keep people safe.

🥚EASTER EGG: Meta’s California Policy Director outright refuses to answer basic questions about the company’s predatory practices:

ONE QUESTION: If you can't defend yourself or your company’s actions, why are you on a public panel?

🏃‍➡️ LEGISLATION ON THE MOVE: Sacramento has been buzzing with action on tech accountability as lawmakers work to advance a strong slate of bills we support, despite Big Tech’s ongoing lobbying blitz:

• Sen. Padilla’s SB 243, which cracks down on manipulative chatbot “companions,” is moving forward. It requires platforms to disclose when users are talking to a bot, publish annual harm reports, and implement mental health safety protocols. This comes as new research shows that nearly 3 in 4 teens have used AI companions, and that prolonged interaction with chatbots can lead to increased feelings of loneliness.
• AB 446 bans retailers from secretly charging different prices based on your ZIP code, income, or online behavior. “This isn’t personalization — it’s digital discrimination that’s costing Californians billions,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Chris Ward.
• Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan’s AB 56 mandates warning labels about social media’s harms and forces platforms to implement safeguards against addictive, harmful content. Sen. Susan Rubio: “Awareness saves lives. Denial does not.”
• Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 53 would require AI developers to publish their own safety protocols and submit to third-party audits so they can’t quietly cut corners on public safety. 

Each bill takes on a different facet of Big Tech’s unchecked power. Together, they send a clear message: California is taking action on critical issues instead of waiting in vain for tech CEOs to police themselves

🫶 TRUMP AND BIG TECH: A BIG, BEAUTIFUL HANDOUT: While millions of everyday Americans had their health care ripped away under the guise of "spending cuts", Big Tech monopolies, like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta, made out like bandits in Trump's "big ugly bill." We guess those inaugural donations must be really paying off.

Last week, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report laying out exactly what Big Tech got in the budget reconciliation deal. (Spoiler: The American people are paying for tax cuts for guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos)

Big Tech’s big haul, in brief:

• 💵 Permanently extended the bonus depreciation tax credit.
• 🏢 Kept the corporate tax rate at 21%, saving companies like Amazon and Meta billions.
• 📉 Extended loopholes that help firms avoid taxes on overseas profits. Alphabet alone saves $11B under this provision.
• 🔍 Included taxpayer-funded R&D tax write-offs allowing Big Tech to pocket billions, including $75B for Google alone.

In a surprise to no one, the American people overwhelmingly hate Big Tech CEOs and are skeptical of the companies.

• 72% of Americans support taxing Big Tech
• Only 7% trust tech CEOs to shape policy
• 74% disapprove of Zuckerberg, 67% of Bezos, and 55% of Pichai

🪤 META'S LATEST BAIT AND SWITCH: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who once slammed closed AI models as "trying to create God," would like to get into the God-making business, apparently. Last week, it came to light that Meta's newly minted Superintelligence Labs plans to abandon its flagship open-source model in favor of a closed approach.

You might be asking yourself, "Didn't Meta make a really big deal about championing open source AI?" And you would be correct.

Over the past few years, Zuckerberg has all but crowned Meta as the king of open source models, and penned a blog that virtue signals about open source models making the "world more prosperous and safer." It turns out that Meta's PR wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

This is the same Meta that once promised publishers that a "pivot to video" would be in their best interests. That bait-and-switch tactic ran local newspapers out of business and bled national media outlets dry.

BOTTOM LINE: Mark Zuckerberg and Meta's leadership are elite rug-pullers. This is a significant setback for champions of the open web, developers who were drawn into using Meta's Llama model, and our entire digital economy.

🤑 DID A BIG TECH CEO WRITE THIS?: On Wednesday, the Trump Administration is expected to unveil its long-awaited AI "Action Plan." In a leak obtained by Axios, the 20-page report is thin on substance and reads like a love letter to a Big Tech industry that is endangering children, scamming seniors, and cheering on mass job losses.

What's in it?

Buried in the plan are draft executive orders: one on AI infrastructure, another to push U.S. tech abroad, and a third – led by David Sacks, Trump’s handpicked “AI czar” – to purge federal agencies of so-called “woke” AI.

What's not in it?

If you are a policy nerd hoping for an August Recess read, you should look elsewhere. The "Action Plan" avoids tough issues like AI transparency, competition, and copyright.

TLDR: The Trump AI Action plan will be light on action, heavy on rhetoric. That said, Congress is a whole other ballgame. House Republicans are continuing to signal that the 99-1-defeated AI moratorium could be reintroduced in the coming days. Stay tuned.

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