Politico reports that Microsoft has been awarded $2.7 billion in federal contracts since 2020, and those could be at risk if the company doesn’t do as it’s told. Tech consultant Niki Christoff warned, “This administration rewards companies that demonstrate political loyalty,” and targets companies that don’t.
Microsoft is well aware of that. So, while the company hasn’t given in to Trump’s biggest demands, it has quietly done smaller things to please him. It did donate money to his inauguration fund and, more recently, to the fund used to build a $250 million ballroom that will replace the White House’s East Wing. (The East wing was demolished last week.)
Microsoft’s decades-long relationships with federal agencies might help insulate it from the pressure, according to Nu Wexler, who has worked in Congress and for Twitter, Facebook and Google. He told Politico that it might be hard to eliminate Microsoft’s contracts because, “their products are already deeply embedded in federal systems.”
This story originally appeared on Computerworld
