Sundar Pichai
Source: CNBC
Google’s political action committee won’t fund members of Congress who voted against the presidential election results, the company confirmed to CNBC on Monday evening.
“After the disturbing events at the Capitol, NetPAC paused all contributions while undertaking a review,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement to CNBC. “Following that review, the NetPAC board has decided that it will not be making any contributions this cycle to any member of Congress who voted against certification of the election results.”
Axios first reported the funding pause.
Last week, tech companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft announced they would pause contributions from their political action committees in the wake of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Insurgents planned to forcibly turn over election results after high-profile Congress members and former President Donald Trump falsely alleged a “stolen” election.
Google’s PAC donated to Sen. Ted Cruz’s Senate campaign in 2017 and 2018.
Scores of his Republican allies in Congress said they would object to the acceptance of electors from states that gave Biden his margin of victory.
The company up until Jan. 7 — after the insurgence — allowed some of the same lawmakers and Trump to recite voter fraud falsehoods on Google-owned YouTube. Trump’s YouTube home page still automatically plays a 46-minute video rife with false allegations of voter fraud. It has been up for a month and has nearly 6 million views.
