Meta Had Its Biggest Lobbying Quarter Ever

Meta had its biggest lobbying quarter in the first few months of 2024, spending a record $7.6 million on engagement with the U.S. government, according to its public lobby filing released last week.

That’s a 64% jump from its spending in the fourth quarter of 2023 and represents more than a third of what Meta spent on lobbying all of last year. The blockbuster quarter underscores how much pending legislation targets Meta and its peers – on everything from data privacy, children’s online safety and content moderation.

Still, Meta says the sharp increase is largely due to compensation for his lobbying team. “The increase in Meta’s lobbying expenses is primarily due to operating expenses, including changes to the semi-annual compensation structure schedule and an elevated share price,” Meta spokesman Daniel Roberts said in a statement to On the edge.

Meta’s spending last quarter is an outlier among its big tech peers. Spending by Apple, Google and Microsoft more than doubled in the first quarter, which spent close to $2 or $3 million. Amazon spent the second most, behind Meta, with US$4.4 million.

The most significant piece of tech legislation to be passed recently was a bill that could ban TikTok unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, divested it within a year – a law that Meta will benefit from. directly if one of its closest competitors is forced out of the US market. But Meta lobbying disclosure does not specifically list this bill as the one he committed to or the foreign aid package he passed. Meta’s Roberts confirmed that the company did not lobby on the so-called Protecting Americans from Controlled Applications of Foreign Adversaries Act.