Big Tech lobbies for a seat at the table as 119th Congress sets its tech policy priorities

Major social media and tech giants expanded their lobbying operations on Capitol Hill during the first quarter of 2025 and are exerting massive efforts to shape lawmakers’ legislative agendas as the new Congress begins.

A new Issue One analysis of recently filed federal lobbying reports reveals that Big Tech, including Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube), Microsoft, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), X (formerly known as Twitter), and Snap (the parent company of Snapchat) collectively pumped more than $17.5 million into lobbying during the first three months of 2025 alone, more than the amount the same companies spent together on lobbying during the same time period in 2024.

“With the arrival of the new Congress, Big Tech companies are continuing to spend tens of millions of dollars to lobby lawmakers and dominate technology policy conversations on data privacy, kids’ online safety, and other issues,” said Issue One Vice President of Advocacy Alix Fraser.

He continued: “Big Tech companies have used their immense power to put profit above all else, showing their willingness to hurt vulnerable children and teenagers, fuel an unprecedented youth mental health crisis, and in the words of Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, work ‘hand in glove’ with the Chinese Communist Party to censor its critics and share Americans’ sensitive data with the Chinese government. Massive lobbying allows Big Tech to have a seat at the table from the start and essentially draft the legislation that is supposed to create safeguards against their products’ worst harms. Congress must pass commonsense guardrails to rein in the influence that tech titans’ money has in Washington.”

New records show that Meta alone spent a record $8 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2025. This is the most the company has spent on lobbying in any single quarter since it first began lobbying in 2009, and is about 5% more than what it spent on lobbying efforts during the first quarter of 2024. So far this year, Meta has employed 85 lobbyists — one for every six members of Congress.

Meanwhile, ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) spent $2.83 million on lobbying during the first quarter of 2025. This is a 6% increase from what it spent on lobbying during the first quarter of 2024. So far this year, ByteDance and its subsidiary TikTok have hired 43 lobbyists — one for every 12 members of Congress.

Read Issue One’s full analysis.