Tech and defense companies that spent the last two years cozying up to President Donald Trump are now rushing to court Democrats, as they brace for a wave of congressional investigations if the party wins control of Congress in the midterms.
Cooper Teboe, a Democratic strategist based in Silicon Valley, told the Washington Post that firms that built ties to the Trump administration have been calling him in a panic, asking which Democrats they should donate to or recruit for their boards.
“They essentially made the cardinal sin of forgetting that pendulums reliably do one thing — and it swings back most of the time,” Teboe said. “They’ve got a very rough couple years ahead.”
Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a record low. Meanwhile, Democrats are preparing to investigate defense tech firms, along with manufacturing and mining companies in the military supply chain, according to nearly a dozen congressional staffers, lobbyists, lawyers, investors and executives who spoke to the Post.
Four people familiar with the plans said firms tied to Donald Trump Jr. that have received Pentagon money would be top priorities. The Post previously found that 15 companies backed by Trump’s sons received $3.2 billion in federal contracts, investments and loans, most of it after Trump returned to office.
Two of the people said companies linked to Elon Musk’s DOGE operation may also be high on the list, as investigators look at whether they profited from information and relationships they gained while running it.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has already sent a warning. Last month he told a defense lobbying group in a letter that the committee may demand documents on donations to Trump’s ballroom project, calling these “topics upon which we are likely to take future investigative steps.”
Lawyers who handle congressional probes said Democrats won’t waste time the way they did in Trump’s first term.
“It’s going to get pretty intense pretty quickly,” said Jamie Bair of Crowell & Moring.
“Every committee is going to want a piece of this,” added Brandon Rios of DLA Piper.
Executives at Palantir, Anduril and OpenAI have worked to get close to the White House while winning lucrative government contracts. Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir’s Shyam Sankar have both openly backed Trump’s agenda.
Now, according to people familiar with internal discussions, some of these companies are talking about adding Democrats to their boards to look less partisan. At defense tech start-ups, investors are telling founders to “build something that will thrive in any administration.”
Rios warned that getting through an investigation unscathed may not be enough.
“You can come in and get out clean and [investigations could] still have a huge business impact,” Rios said.