Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are 'pretending to be Republicans' to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately 'rip off consumers and crush competitors'

Gaming IndustryFortniteEpic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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Tim Sweeney

Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney had some biting words on Friday for tech executives who are fawning over US president-elect Donald Trump, accusing them of playing nice to push anti-competitive policy to the detriment of the rest of us.

“After years of pretending to be Democrats, Big Tech leaders are now pretending to be Republicans, in hopes of currying favor with the new administration,” Sweeneysaid in a post on X. “Beware of the scummy monopoly campaign to vilify competition law as they rip off consumers and crush competitors.”

(Image credit: Tim Sweeney/X)

@TimSweeneyEpic: “After years of pretending to be Democrats, Big Tech leaders are now pretending to be Republicans, in hopes of currying favor with the new administration. Beware of the scummy monopoly campaign to vilify competition law as they rip off consumers and crush competitors."

Google and Apple are among Trump’s new tech industry admirers: Both are donating $1 million to the inauguration, with Apple CEO Tim Cookreportedly making the contribution personally. Sweeney and Epic have been battling both companies for years over smartphone software distribution.

Althoughlaw firm Skadden predictsthat “aggressive antitrust enforcement is unlikely to disappear altogether” during Trump’s second term, the new administration is expected to be softer on antitrust cases, and FTC Chair Lina Khansaid this weekthat she hopes Amazon and Meta won’t be handed a “sweetheart deal” in upcoming antitrust trials.

Probably not coincidentally, Amazon and Meta have both made their own million-dollar Trump inauguration donations, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg alsoloosening Facebook content moderation policiesin an obvious attempt to please the new administration.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huangsaid recentlythat he’d love to personally congratulate Trump, and that the GPU maker will do everything it can “to help this administration succeed,” although Nvidia hasn’t announced plans to donate to the inauguration.

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Trump himself has commented on the attitude change from big tech leaders. “The first term, everybody was fighting me,” the president-electsaid in December. “In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.”

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