Which Tech Companies Spend the Most Money On Lobbying?

As government regulation of the tech industry begins to feel like more of an inevitability than a possibility, tech giants are spending millions more each year to influence policy decisions in our nation's capital.

According to data from the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database aggregated by Statista, the big five tech companies—Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft—have steadily increased the amount of money they spend on lobbying over the past several years. Atop the list is Google.

Google has come under fire on Capitol Hill over issues such as data privacy and its Chinese search-engine project, as exemplified recently by CEO Sundar Pichai's House Judiciary Committee hearing. The company was also working on an AI surveillance project for the Pentagon before abandoning Project Maven amid employee protest.

So Google had plenty of reasons to set a record of $21.2 million in lobbying expenses in 2018. According to the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, the company filed disclosures on lobbying bills related to issues including online advertising, tax issues, trade policy, and immigration.

Coming in at a distant second is Amazon, with $14.2 million spent on lobbying in 2018. Amazon has spent progressively more on lobbying as the company moves into new industries while continuing to draw the ire of the White House. The company is so invested in expanding its DC influence that it's setting up a new headquarters right across the river.

Surprisingly, given Facebook's tumultuous (to say the least) two years since the 2016 election, the company is only in third place, with $12.6 million spent on lobbying last year. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg both appeared before Congress last year to answer for 2016 election hacking, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, data collection, fake acccounts and trolls, how the company makes money, and a slew of other issues. We'd guess the social media giant's 2019 lobbying bill will be quite a bit higher, as the company continues to come under fire.

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Rounding out the list are Microsoft at $9.5 million and Apple at $6.6 million. Apple is the only company of the five that actually spent less on lobbying in 2018 than it did in 2017.