The time has come for businesses to get involved in politics without limits. The question is if we can go back, or even want to.
For a long time, business leaders and CEOs were only involved in politics in private boardrooms, behind-the-scenes lobbying, and small campaign donations. They had a huge impact, but most people didn't see it. Companies paid for think tanks, hired lobbyists, and quietly influenced laws, all while pretending to be politically neutral.
That picture has changed a lot since then. More and more CEOs are no longer happy with having influence without saying anything. They now openly and often aggressively share their political views in public, using the same mass communication tools that were once only available to politicians and news organizations.
Elon Musk is the best example of this change.
The head of Tesla and owner of the X (formerly Twitter) platform publicly supported Donald Trump during the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign, both online and by going to campaign rallies in person. Musk didn't just support a candidate; he also gave the most money to the 2024 election cycle, giving more than $290 million in campaign contributions. His super PAC, America PAC, did things that are usually done by the campaign itself, like reaching out to voters and canvassing. This was the first time that corporate wealth and direct electoral machinery came together.
After Trump won, Musk agreed to be a "special government employee" in charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which he had suggested to Trump himself. In this role, Musk and his team, who were mostly young engineers from Silicon Valley with no government experience, were able to get into the U.S. Treasury Department's payment systems, which handle trillions of dollars in spending each year. DOGE employees went into federal agencies, looked over contracts, helped with mass layoffs, and pushed for the closing of whole departments, such as the Department of Education and USAID.
Critics called the deal a corporate takeover of the government. Richard Briffault from Columbia Law School said that Musk is "basically a walking conflict of interest." He pointed out that Musk's companies—Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, and The Boring Company—have received more than $20 billion in government contracts and subsidies, even though they are also being regulated by the same agencies that DOGE was restructuring. The FAA wanted to fine SpaceX for breaking safety rules, the SEC had fined Musk for tweets that moved the market, and the NHTSA had looked into Tesla's Autopilot system many times. Theoretically, DOGE could make all of those oversight mechanisms weaker in the name of efficiency.
Musk left the job in May 2025, saying that legal problems and reported disagreements with members of Trump's cabinet were to blame. But his leaving didn't stop the initiative from having an effect. A lot of his DOGE lieutenants went on to work full-time at the same agencies they had been sent to look into.
The question that comes to mind is clear: was this an isolated event or the start of a bigger change? And most importantly, can the increasing political involvement of CEOs upset the balance of democracy?
When political ambition meets business power
Musk's case is not the only one. It is the very end of a range that has been getting wider for years.
Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine, said he supported Trump's political agenda not long after the U.S. elections. He publicly praised Trump's work as president and even backed the idea of sending the National Guard to San Francisco. However, he later tried to take back some of what he said. In 2024, Benioff's Time controversially named Trump its Person of the Year. Many people thought this was a calculated move to get closer to political power.
Before the election, Amazon's Jeff Bezos did something that hadn't been done in decades: the Washington Post, which he owns, didn't endorse a presidential candidate in 2024. The decision, which is said to have come directly from Bezos, led to a lot of people canceling their subscriptions and leaving the paper. Critics say that the paper's editorial independence was sacrificed for the owner's business interests in keeping good relations with whatever administration came to power.
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta also signaled a big change in the political landscape. After years of fighting with conservative politicians over how to moderate content, Zuckerberg showed up at Trump's inauguration, said he would stop fact-checking programs on his platforms, and talked about how important "masculine energy" is in the workplace. Many people saw this as an attempt to align with the new administration's cultural agenda.
European observers often think these kinds of actions are too much. In the US, though, they are part of a trend that has been growing over the past ten years: CEO activism.
Activism by CEOs isn't new, but the level of it is unprecedented.
Corporate political activism may seem like a new thing that started with social media, but it has been around for a long time.
Henry Ford is one of the first and most troubling examples. Ford used his extensive fame and wealth to promote his political views in public in the first half of the 20th century. For example, he used his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, to spread virulently anti-Semitic propaganda. He was also a well-known leader of the America First movement, which wanted the US to stay out of foreign wars. Some of the most dangerous politicians of the time looked up to him.
Later, Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire who started Electronic Data Systems, used his business reputation to run for president of the United States twice in the 1990s as an "outsider." Many people now see Perot's campaigns, which used folksy language, infomercials, and a populist critique of Washington elites, as a precursor to the populist movements that have changed Western politics in the 21st century.
Silvio Berlusconi in Italy may be the best example of a European case study. In 1994, the billionaire and media mogul got into politics. He used his ownership of TV networks and a football team to start a political movement from scratch. He was Prime Minister three times, which showed how easily corporate power could turn into direct political power when institutional protections weren't strong enough.
What has changed today is not the phenomenon itself, but how big, fast, and deeply it is built into the system. This acceleration can be explained by a number of factors that are coming together.
The factor of generations. A younger group of business leaders, many of whom work in technology, seems more willing to get involved in politics in public. These executives grew up in a culture that values disruption and "changing the world." Because of this, they often see getting involved in politics as an extension of their personal brand, not a risk.
The technological aspect. Social media likes short, emotional, and controversial posts. A CEO with tens of millions of followers has a platform that is as good as or better than most traditional media outlets. When Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, he got more than just a megaphone. He also got to control the platform's algorithms, moderation rules, and content recommendations. This is a qualitatively different kind of influence than what a business leader has had before.
The legal part. The 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission got rid of rules that limited how much corporations and unions could spend on politics. This meant that corporations could spend money on elections without worrying about breaking the law. The effects have been huge: a record $2.6 billion came from just 100 billionaire donors for the 2024 elections, which is almost 20% of all spending. In 2024, dark money, or political spending by groups that don't say who gives them money, hit $1.4 billion. That was a big jump from the $129 million spent in the decade before Citizens United. More than 80% of billionaires' spending in 2024 went through channels that were illegal before the ruling. Seventy-nine percent of Americans, regardless of political party, say that big donations from rich people and businesses lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Economist Intelligence Unit now calls the US a "flawed democracy."
From Activism by CEOs to Activism by Brands
Activism by CEOs is just one part of a bigger trend: activism by businesses in politics and society. Not only individual executives are speaking out anymore; the brands themselves are now involved in politics.
Starbucks' "Race Together" (2015), Nike's "Dream Crazy" with Colin Kaepernick (2018), and Gillette's "The Best Men Can Be" (2019) show how big companies now often speak out about issues of racial justice, gender roles, and social inequality.
The Kaepernick campaign by Nike is the best example to learn from. Nike's choice of the controversial quarterback, who had been effectively blacklisted from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, as the face of its 30th anniversary "Just Do It" campaign caused an immediate backlash. In the first few days, Nike's stock fell by 3%. People filmed themselves setting fire to Nike shoes. Even President Trump spoke out, questioning the company's decision.
But Nike had done its research. Internal research showed that 46% of recent Nike customers liked Kaepernick, and its main target groups, millennials and Generation Z, were much more open to brands taking political stands. The risk paid off big time; Nike's stock hit an all-time high within weeks. The campaign got $163.5 million worth of earned media exposure, raised Nike's brand value by $6 billion, and sales went up by 31%.
These actions show both real consumer expectations and planned economic opportunism. In a very divided world, companies are hoping that the "buycott" effect among supporters will be stronger than the boycott from people who don't like them. And more and more, the data backs them up, at least for now.
But this makes me think of a bigger question: when political views turn into brand strategies and social causes turn into marketing chances, does public discourse get better or worse?
A study from Cornell University published in 2025 found that CEO activism always divides people. It makes very positive reactions even stronger among people who are on the same page, but it also makes negative reactions even stronger, and the negative reactions usually outweigh the positive ones. Most of the time, people want business leaders to stay away from political issues that divide people. This means that CEO activism might make a small group of people more loyal to a brand, but it could also hurt trust in society as a whole.
The Democratic Dangers of Public Corporate Power
Corporations have always had an impact on politics, but in the past, they did so behind the scenes by lobbying, giving money to campaigns, hiring former regulators who had worked for the government, and using research funded by the industry in smart ways. This type of influence was very bad, but researchers, journalists, and watchdogs could at least somewhat understand it.
Contemporary corporate activism is distinct in that it is public, ostentatious, and utilizes platforms intended to enhance emotional engagement over rational discourse.
Big companies have a lot of ways to get their messages out, like owning media platforms, having access to consumer data, and being able to change algorithms that decide what millions of people see. This voice imbalance can make some ideas have more of an impact on public discourse than others, pushing out ideas that don't have the same amount of money behind them.
Moreover, the intentional stimulation of political emotions, via motivational advertising, incendiary CEO remarks, or algorithmic enhancement, exacerbates affective polarization. It makes it less likely that people will agree, makes public debate worse, and makes it easier for people to get wrong information.
Corporate sociopolitical activism is mostly unregulated, which is probably the most important thing. You have to register to lobby. After Citizens United, there are rules about what campaign contributions must be made public. Political ads must also say who paid for them. When a CEO uses their personal social media account or when a brand runs a political ad campaign that is framed as "corporate values," there are almost no rules about transparency, accountability, or making sure that the public interest is represented.
Scholars call this a "institutional vacuum," which is a place where power is used without any accountability or oversight.
Will there be political CEOs in Europe?
Things are more complicated in Europe, and for now, they are more restrained.
Brand and CEO activism is still pretty rare in places like France, but things are starting to change. Business leaders like Pierre-Édouard Stérin, a tech entrepreneur who has given money to conservative and far-right causes, and even Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH and one of the richest people in the world, have been more open about their political views than their predecessors.
Germany, on the other hand, is the most active front.
As the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) did better in polls and regional elections, many well-known business leaders spoke out against the party in public. Leaders from Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and other big companies signed open letters warning against extremism. But this apparent civic engagement has led to a lot of debate: does corporate opposition to the far right work as a deterrent, or does it add to populist stories about elite conspiracies and make polarization worse?
The experience of the United States serves as a cautionary parallel. American tech leaders like Zuckerberg, who publicly condemned Trump after the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, and others who initially positioned themselves as defenders of democratic norms and progressive values, made shocking changes when the political winds changed. The idea that business leaders will be good protectors of democratic institutions has turned out to be, at best, naive.
Europe also doesn't have some of the structural factors that have made CEO activism in the U.S. so powerful. Most EU member states still have stricter rules about how to pay for campaigns. Some markets have a wider range of media ownership. And the cultural norm that businesses should stay out of politics, which the French call devoir de réserve, is still important, but it is fading.
Social media, polarization, the mixing of corporate and personal brands, and the weakening of traditional political institutions are all things that are happening in Europe as well. The question is not if the event will happen, but when and how.
Can we go back?
The intertwining of corporate and political power is neither fortuitous nor unavoidable. It is the result of certain legal decisions (Citizens United), changes in technology (social media platforms owned by billionaires who are politically active), and changes in culture (the idea that brands should "stand for something").
To change these trends, action would need to be taken on many fronts. Reforming campaign finance could stop corporations from giving money to elections, but this kind of change is very hard to get through because every sitting legislator has benefited from the current system. Antitrust laws could stop politically active billionaires from owning too much media, but decades of deregulation have made it harder to enforce these laws. Voter evaluation of political messages directed at them could be enhanced by transparency mandates for corporate political engagement; however, the prevailing trend in numerous jurisdictions has been towards diminished disclosure rather than increased transparency.
To deal with the political power of CEOs, we need to face an uncomfortable truth: in a time when democratic institutions are getting weaker, trust in government is going down, and people are becoming more cynical about politics, the people with the most resources, the biggest platforms, and the most ability to act are not elected officials but corporate executives. Unaccountable private power is filling the void left by bad politics.
The ancient Greek warning that a democracy that doesn't stop the concentration of wealth will end up in an oligarchy has never felt more true. The die may already have been cast in a time of extreme technological globalization and unprecedented personal wealth. But democracy is never really won or lost. There is always a contest going on, and the first step is to see it for what it is.