Big tech continues to bend the knee to Trump a year after his inauguration

Inside the big rewards tech titans have reaped from caving to Trump. Plus, a look at the US datacenter boom and the effects of Australia’s social media ban

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, the Guardian’s US tech editor.

One year ago today, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States. Standing alongside him that day were the leaders of the tech industry’s most powerful companies, who had donated to him in an unprecedented bending of the knee. In the ensuing year, the companies have reaped enormous rewards from their alliance with Trump, which my colleague Nick Robins-Early and I wrote about last month after Trump signed an executive order prohibiting states from passing laws regulating AI. Trump has sponsored the tech industry with billions in government funding and with diplomatic visits that featured CEOs as his fellow negotiators in massive, lucrative deals.