David Gelles, Under Trump, Billionaire Climate Champions Have Gone Quiet, NYTimes, Feb. 11, 2025.
Over the last decade or so, a group of America’s wealthiest individuals, largely from the tech industry, became some of the world’s biggest climate champions, pledging billions in highly public campaigns.
Jeff Bezos [...] Michael Bloomberg [...] Bill Gates [...] Laurene Powell Jobs [...] Marc Benioff, the co-founder of Salesforce, spun up an initiative to plant a trillion trees.
And big tech companies, from Google to Meta to Amazon, made ambitious pledges to reduce emissions and support clean energy.
But over the past few weeks, many of these voices have gone quiet as President Trump has slashed environmental protections, promoted planet-warming fossil fuels and taken steps to dismantle American climate policy.
On his first day in office, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord, set in motion plans to open Alaskan wilderness to drilling and mining, halted federal approvals for new wind farms, told federal agencies to stop subsidizing electric vehicles, and paused approvals for renewable energy projects on public lands. Since then, his assault on climate initiatives promoted by the Biden administration has continued.
With the exception of Bloomberg, none of the leaders, including Bezos, Gates, Powell Jobs and Benioff, have made statements opposing the Trump administration’s actions. Silicon Valley’s major tech companies that have committed to reducing their emissions have also been silent.
When BIG DOG says jump, they know it's time to do their business.
There's more at the link.
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