Epic Games CEO Slams Big Tech Leaders Like Meta's Mark Zuckerberg: "Pretending To Be Republicans In Hopes Of Currying Favor"
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney slammed Big Tech leaders and seemingly Mark Zuckerberg after his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience.
Sweeney wrote on X, “After years of pretending to be Democrats, Big Tech leaders are now pretending to be Republicans, in hopes of currying favor with the new administration. Beware of the scummy monopoly campaign to vilify competition law as they rip off consumers and crush competitors.”
READ: Former 'World Of Warcraft' Team Lead Speculates That Ubisoft Management Team Is Looking To Sell
Sweeney’s comments came the day that Joe Rogan published a nearly 3-hour long interview with Meta and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, where he detailed he was loosening ideological censorship policies the company had enacted.
While Zuckerberg was talking with Rogan his company was also rolling back various DEI policies it had implemented. Axios reported, “Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is terminating major DEI programs, effective immediately — including for hiring, training and picking suppliers, according to a new employee memo obtained by Axios.”
The memo states, “The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics. The term "DEI" has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
It went on to announce a number of changes:
On hiring, we will continue to source candidates from different backgrounds, but we will stop using the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been subject to public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams made up of world-class people from all types of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.
We previously ended representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.
We are sunsetting our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort focused on sourcing from diverse-owned businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium sized businesses that power much of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.
Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.
We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta, focused on accessibility and engagement.
READ: 'Marvel Rivals' Estimated To Have Grossed $136 Million In First Month After Launch
Sweeney’s comment also comes in the wake of other major tech companies like Apple and Google reportedly donating to President Donald Trump inaugural committee.
Axios reported earlier this month that “Apple CEO Tim Cook will personally donate $1 million to President-elect Trump's inaugural committee, sources with knowledge of the donation tell Axios.”
Google announced a donation to Trump’s committee. Google’s Global Head of Government Affairs and Policy Karan Bhatia told CNBC, “Google is pleased to support the 2025 inauguration, with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage. We’re also donating to the inaugural committee.” It’s reportedly a $1 million donation.
Sweeney has routinely criticized both Apple and Google for what he believes to be monopoly practices relating to the how the company’s handle their app stores.
In 2020, Sweeney told CNBC, “Apple has locked down and crippled the ecosystem by inventing an absolute monopoly on the distribution of software, on the monetization of software.”
This came after he launched and his company launched the Epic Game Store and it was blocked on Apple devices. Sweeney said, “They are preventing an entire category of businesses and applications from being engulfed in their ecosystem by virtue of excluding competitors from each aspect of their business that they’re protecting.”
He did not just criticize Apple, but directed his ire at Google as well, “Google essentially intentionally stifles competing stores by having user interface barriers and obstruction.”
One of his primary objectives is the fact that both companies take a 30% cut of all sales made through their stores, “If every developer could accept their own payments and avoid the 30% tax by Apple and Google we could pass the savings along to all our consumers and players would get a better deal on items. And you’d have economic competition.”
READ: Ubisoft Delays Assassin's Creed Shadows To March After Spending An Extra €20 Million
He reiterated these charges in October of last year during the Unreal Fest in Seattle. He said, “For a vibrant digital ecosystem to exist in the future we need fair competition and an end to these monopoly rent collectors. Apple and Google have a totally broken vision for the world which is to limit what developers can do, to impose ever more restrictions to prevent things like the metaverse from happening, or to tax it to the point where they're extracting all the profit from it.”
“We're at a point now where game development is expensive, it's low margin, and game companies are suffering,” he continued. “Apple and Google make way more profit from most games than the developers make themselves while contributing nothing back. And this has to change.”
What do you make of Sweeney’s recent comments about Big Tech leaders?
Says the rat who tried (and failed) to establish a scummy monopoly campaign to villify competition law as he tried to rip off consumers and crush the competition with his shitty epic fail store and its exclusives.
Sorry, you are just as big of a rat as Zuck. You do anything you can and have NO bottom which you will not stoop to get what YOU want and to amplify and further YOUR ideology... so spare me the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
It's tired. Zuckerberg isn't running scared, yet. He is losing millions of dollars a day employing morons who are pushing YOUR ideology on others, Tim. It's not about being "Republican"... because your simplistic and 3rd grade view of politics is as bad as your storefront.
You're just jealous of Gabe, Tim. :)