Sen. Warren questions big tech on AI tax breaks amid scrutiny

Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to know where big tech’s tax dollars went. On September 28, she and fellow Senate Democrats fired off letters to the CEOs of Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft, demanding a detailed accounting of the tax deductions and subsidies these companies have claimed on their massive AI and data center investments. The trigger: corporate tax payments from these four firms have collectively fallen 25% year-over-year, even as their revenues kept climbing. The numbers behind the inquiry The individual figures are striking. Microsoft’s federal income tax expense dropped by more than $11B from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2026. Amazon’s federal tax payments fell nearly $8B from FY2024 to FY2025. Alphabet’s combined federal and state tax expenses shrank by over $7B. All three companies, meanwhile, have been spending aggressively on AI infrastructure. Meta alone reported $72B in capital expenditures last year, with the bulk going toward data centers and AI-related projects. Warren’s letters trace the declining tax bills directly to the 2025 Republican-led legislation known as the “one big beautiful bill” act, or OBBBA. That law included provisions allowing compa...