Google

What Google Is and Who Controls It

Google is the search, advertising, and technology business that generates most of the revenue of its parent company, Alphabet Inc. Its products include Google Search, YouTube, the Android operating system, the Chrome browser, and Google Cloud. Alphabet is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and trades on the Nasdaq under the tickers GOOGL and GOOG. [3]

Alphabet uses a multi-class share structure in which Class B shares carry ten votes apiece. As of April 6, 2026, co-founder Larry Page held 27.4 percent of total voting power and co-founder Sergey Brin held 25.3 percent, a combined 52.7 percent. Both men sit on the board alongside chief executive Sundar Pichai. Because they control roughly 52.7 percent of the voting power, the two founders effectively control the outcome of ordinary shareholder votes, which is necessary context for reading the proposal results described further down. [4]

Google NetPAC Divides Its Money Almost Evenly

Google NetPAC is the company's federal political action committee. It was formed in 2006, is funded by voluntary contributions from Google employees, and is the vehicle the company uses to make direct contributions to federal candidates. [5]

In the 2023 to 2024 election cycle, NetPAC gave $737,066 to federal candidates. Republicans received $372,000 of that, or 50.47 percent. Democrats received $357,566, or 48.51 percent. Among House candidates alone, Republicans received $322,000 and Democrats received $301,566. [1]

The recipient list crosses party lines at the top. NetPAC's largest House contributions in that cycle, $10,000 each, went to Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Tom Emmer of Minnesota, both Republicans, and to Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, Zoe Lofgren of California, and Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, all Democrats. [1]

Employee Giving Runs the Other Direction

Federal campaign-finance trackers aggregate Alphabet, its subsidiaries, and its employees and their families into a single organization profile. For the 2024 cycle that profile shows $20,604,525 in contributions and $14,790,000 in lobbying spending, with no reported outside spending. The great majority of the contribution total comes from individuals rather than from NetPAC. [2]

The party split at that level is not close. Of the Alphabet-affiliated money that went to Democrats or Republicans in the 2024 cycle, $13,945,075, or 89.66 percent, went to Democrats, and $1,608,094, or 10.34 percent, went to Republicans. The tilt holds across the last three presidential cycles. Democrats took 73.76 percent of the two-party total in 2016, 93.88 percent in 2020, and 89.66 percent in 2024. In the 2022 midterm cycle the figure was 88.56 percent, and in 2018 it was 83.36 percent. [2]

A shareholder proposal included in Alphabet's 2024 proxy statement cited published analyses of that individual giving. According to the filing, from 2004 to 2017 about 15 million dollars donated by employees of Google and related companies went to Democrats, compared with about 1.6 million dollars to Republicans, and in 2016 roughly 94 percent of Alphabet employee donations went to Hillary Clinton. The same proposal cited reports that top Google donors directed about 94 percent of their 2022 political contributions to Democrats. These figures come from a shareholder's supporting statement quoting outside analyses, not from company-reported totals. [6]

YouTube Reversed Its 2020 Election Speech Policy in 2023

In December 2020, after states certified the presidential results, YouTube began removing videos claiming that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the election. The company later said it removed tens of thousands of videos under that policy. [7]

On June 2, 2023, YouTube ended it. The company said that continuing to remove the content could have the unintended effect of "curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm," and that with the 2024 campaigns underway it would stop taking down claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 and other past presidential elections. Other parts of its election policies stayed in place. [7]

Gemini's Image Tool Drew a Bias Backlash in 2024

On February 22, 2024, Google paused Gemini's ability to generate images of people. Users had circulated outputs in which the tool depicted historically white subjects, including American founders and German soldiers of the Nazi era, as racially diverse, and in which it declined prompts for images of white people. The criticism came largely from conservative commentators, who described the results as evidence of an anti-white slant in the product. [8]

In a memo to employees days later, Pichai wrote that some of Gemini's responses had offended users and shown bias, and that this was "completely unacceptable and we got it wrong." He committed to structural changes, updated product guidelines, and revised launch processes. Google began restoring people-image generation in August 2024, at first only for a limited set of users and only in English. [8]

Alphabet Ended Its Diversity Hiring Goals in February 2025

In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Pichai set a goal to increase leadership representation of underrepresented groups by 30 percent by 2025, and the company pledged 175 million dollars to support Black business owners, founders, and developers. [9]

Two separate changes landed in February 2025. Google told its own employees it would no longer maintain aspirational diversity hiring goals, and described that decision as a response to recent court decisions and executive orders affecting federal contractors. Separately, Alphabet removed from its annual 10-K filing a prior statement committing to make diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything it does. [9][10]

Google Dropped Its AI Weapons and Surveillance Limits the Same Month

Google published its AI Principles in 2018 after declining to renew Project Maven, a Defense Department contract applying Google artificial intelligence to drone footage. Several thousand employees had signed a petition against the contract and some resigned over it. The original principles listed applications the company would not pursue, including weapons and surveillance that violates internationally accepted norms. [11]

On February 4, 2025, Google removed that list. The replacement principles, posted by Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis and research senior vice president James Manyika, argued that democracies should lead in AI development and that companies sharing those values should work with governments in support of national security. The revision came weeks after Pichai attended President Trump's inauguration, and three Senate Democrats wrote to Pichai later that month asking him to explain the change. [11]

Shareholders Pressed Alphabet on Viewpoint Diversity in 2026

At Alphabet's annual meeting on June 5, 2026, shareholders voted on proposals asking the company to report on viewpoint diversity risk, on politicized content moderation, and on the impact of United States immigration policy. The board recommended a vote against each one. None passed. [4][12]

The margins were not close. The viewpoint diversity proposal drew 19,216,908 votes in favor against 12,324,947,838 opposed. The content moderation proposal drew 25,617,853 in favor against 12,299,460,438 opposed. The immigration proposal drew 224,647,230 in favor against 12,098,472,610 opposed. [12]

In its written opposition to the content moderation proposal, the board stated that Alphabet's content policies and YouTube's Community Guidelines apply equally to all users and all types of content regardless of the viewpoints expressed, that the company maintains full independence in its moderation decisions, and that its existing Transparency Reports already provide the disclosure the proposal sought. [4]

How Alphabet Oversees Its Own Political Activity

In October 2025 Alphabet's board established a Risk and Compliance Committee. Among its stated responsibilities is evaluating the company's positions in connection with legislation, regulation, enforcement, litigation, and social or political issues significant to the company's operations. [4]

Footnotes

1. Google Inc PAC contributions to federal candidates, 2023-2024 cycle, OpenSecrets (FEC committee C00428623).
2. Alphabet Inc organization profile, contributions by party of recipient, 2016 through 2024 cycles, OpenSecrets.
3. Alphabet Inc. corporate filings, SEC EDGAR.
4. Alphabet Inc. 2026 proxy statement (DEF 14A), SEC EDGAR.
5. Google NetPAC, Ballotpedia; FEC committee registration C00428623.
6. Alphabet Inc. 2024 proxy statement (DEF 14A), shareholder proposal on viewpoint discrimination and employee political giving, SEC EDGAR.
7. An update on our approach to US election misinformation, YouTube Official Blog, June 2, 2023; contemporaneous reporting by Axios, CNN, and NPR.
8. Google Communications statement pausing Gemini people-image generation, February 22, 2024; Sundar Pichai internal memo to employees, late February 2024, as reported by Semafor and NPR; Forbes, August 2024, on the limited restoration.
9. Google ends minority hiring goals, The Hill, February 2025.
10. Google scraps diversity hiring goals to comply with Trump contractor rules, Associated Press, February 2025.
11. Responsible AI Principles update, Google DeepMind blog, February 4, 2025; Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons and surveillance, CNBC, February 4, 2025; letter to Sundar Pichai from Senators Markey, Merkley, and Welch, February 19, 2025.
12. Alphabet Inc. Form 8-K reporting 2026 annual meeting voting results, SEC EDGAR; Alphabet investor relations 2026 annual meeting page.