Under Trump 2.0, Tech Firms Scale Back Their Pride Initiatives

Tech companies were happy to have their name appear alongside President Donald Trump’s strange, authoritarian-esque military parade. But they are suddenly seeming a bit shy about supporting Pride events. Wonder what that is about?

CNBC reports that San Francisco Pride will not feature Facebook parent company Meta as one of its sponsors this year—a major absence from a company that once had a major presence at the parade. For what it’s worth, the disappearance of Meta’s branding appears to be a bit of a mutual decision: CEO Mark Zuckerberg is sucking up to Trump and backing off diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the board, and seems to be disinterested in showing support for anything that offers even a hint of “wokeness.” SF Pride, meanwhile, went ahead and cut ties with Meta in March after the company axed its diversity efforts and changed its content moderation rules to weaken protections for marginalized people, including LGBTQ+ communities.

But it’s not just Meta that suddenly sees pride as a sin. The Guardian reported that Google was pulling out of Toronto Pride despite once being a major sponsor of the event. Like Meta, Comcast backed out of SF Pride. The Seattle Times reported that an LGBTQ group within Amazon is pulling back from its sponsorship of Seattle Pride—though the city’s Pride organizers severed their relationship with Amazon proper a few years ago. According to Mashable, many of the Big Tech companies have also opted to offer much less public support for the LGBTQ community during Pride Month, issuing fewer posts and press releases to align themselves with the cause.

It’s not hard to figure out what’s behind the scaleback. The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI, including threats to punish companies for engaging in anything that even hints at the idea of supporting the rights of marginalized people, have in no small part caused corporations to shy away from public displays of support. According to data published by Axios, about 39% of corporations are scaling back external Pride Month support this year, and that figure climbs to nearly 60% among federal contractors.

On one hand, the LGBTQ+ community does not need to be corporate-approved. In fact, while it’s great when companies signal that they aren’t bigots, the commercialization of Pride is the cause of consternation for some members of the community who fear companies are getting away with “Rainbow Washing,” or trying to clean up their reputation by wrapping themselves in popular causes. On the other hand, though, these major sponsors pulling back has created a budget issue for some events. The Associated Press reported that SF Pride has a $200,000 budget shortfall because of a lack of expected sponsor backing, and Kansas City’s KC Pride event lost $200,000 this year.