If you measure only in dollars (and not in dignity), YouTube got a pretty good deal. This week, the Google-owned platform paid $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump after the company suspended his channel six days after the January 6 riot at the Capitol. At the time, YouTube said it was “concerned about the ongoing potential for violence.” (Trump’s account was eventually reinstated in March 2023.) The terms of the settlement will direct $22 million to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit group that is raising money to finance an addition to the White House. Most creators are lucky if they get a gold plaque from YouTube; Trump’s getting a new ballroom.

This is just the latest example of major tech companies bowing to Trump. Earlier this year, Meta and X settled similar lawsuits with Trump over suspending his accounts, paying $25 million and $10 million, respectively. These three companies alone have collectively paid Trump and his associates $59.5 million for the sin of enforcing the rules of their own privately held companies. There’s also Amazon, which made a reported $40 million deal with Melania Trump on a documentary project. Plus personal donations to Trump from various tech CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook, who gave $1 million to his inaugural fund.

All of this amounts to a rounding error for the tech giants—averaged out, YouTube made more than $107 million from ad revenue every single day last quarter—but these are still acts of profound obsequi