Coming Soon: Another Dropoff in Corporate Crime Enforcement
Public Citizen launched a tracker today to watchdog federal investigations and cases against alleged corporate criminals – cases that are at risk of being abandoned, weakened, or scaled back under the Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump may talk tough on crime, but Public Citizen’s research shows that the last time he took office, criminal enforcement against corporations plummeted.
“Corporate crime enforcement fell during Trump’s first term, even as his administration pursued ‘tough’ policies against immigrants, protestors, and low-level offenders,” said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen, who compiled the tracker. “It’s likely Trump’s second term will see a similar or worse dropoff in enforcement.”
As of today, Public Citizen’s Corporate Enforcement Tracker includes a total of 237 investigations and cases against 192 distinct corporations. Nearly one third of these companies have known ties with the Trump administration. They or their executives have either contributed to his inauguration, or Trump has nominated their former employees, investors, and lobbyists.
Among the corporations facing investigations or enforcement are:
- Sixteen that have contributed to Trump’s inaugural fund or whose CEOs have contributed: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Coinbase, Ford, Goldman Sachs, Kraken, Meta, OpenAI, Pfizer, Ripple, Robinhood, Stanley Black & Decker, Toyota, and Uber;
- Four helmed by Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X (formerly Twitter);
- Four that received notable investments from venture capitalist David Sacks, who Trump has named to be the White House AI and Crypto Czar; and
- Two lobbying clients formerly represented by Trump’s attorney general nominee Pamela Bondi: Amazon and Republic Services.
The five corporations with the most federal investigations or cases against them are Tesla (7), Amazon (6), Pfizer (5), Wells Fargo (4), and SpaceX (4). The five federal agencies with the most investigations and cases in the database are the U.S. Department of Justice (63), the National Labor Relations Board (50), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (42), the Federal Trade Commission (32), and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (14).
The tracker is not comprehensive, but is intended to highlight the most significant actions and cases. The data has been gleaned from public sources, including corporate filings, agency disclosures, and news reports. It is important to note that the existence of investigations and/or allegations of misconduct do not necessarily mean that any laws were broken, or that an enforcement action necessarily would have been brought under a different administration.