MAGA Inc.: Conclusion: Pushing Back

Across the country, resistance to Trump’s maverick actions is mounting. A tidal wave of protests is unfolding notably against Big Tech companies like Amazon, Oracle, OpenAI and Palantir as well as other Trump administration-affiliated businesses like CoreCivic, CSI Aviation, GEO Group and Energy Transfer.

(Click here for the table of contents of MAGA Inc.: A Guide to Trump's World of Crypto Czars, Tech Titans and Prison Profiteers.) 

The biggest backlash has been against the data centers that are taking over swathes of rural farmland, drawing down water supplies and causing electricity prices to spike.

Opposition to Texas projects like Stargate in Abilene, Fermi in Amarillo and Highlander near San Antonio, are just the tip of the iceberg – some 48 proposed U.S. data center projects with a total value of some US$156 billion were blocked or stalled by local opposition groups in 2025. Almost 70 local governments have passed laws blocking new data center construction and over a dozen states are looking to do the same, according to the US Data Center Moratorium Tracker.

In December 2025, Texas activists celebrated after a prospective tenant withdrew a US$150 million funding commitment to the proposed Fermi data center.

"This moment shows that data centers are not inevitable,” said Danny Cendejas, a campaign specialist at MediaJustice in a press release. "This is a warning sign for the entire data center and AI infrastructure industry that communities will continue to fight to halt these projects. Across the country, people are organizing against data centers that increase their utilities costs, siphon their water supply and take over their land."

Since then shareholders have filed lawsuits alleging that the data center's claims for market demand were over-hyped and two top executives at Fermi have resigned.

Activism against Big Tech companies profiting off surveillance has also started to mushroom, notably against Palantir. From California (where the company was initially based) to Denver, Colorado, (where the company headquarters were moved in 2020) and Miami, Florida (where the company headquarters were moved in 2025) as well as across the country in cities like New York where protestors have displayed signs like "ICE kidnaps, Palantir profits. Let our people go” and “Palantir Powers ICE & Automates Cruelty.”

The negative publicity is starting to affect Palantir’s business. Republik newspaper and the WAV research collective in Switzerland found that Swiss government agencies had rejected Palantir contracts no less than nine times. 

Similar action has been taken by the city of London (in the UK), which blocked a £50 million contract for Palantir to provide software to the Metropolitan Police for criminal investigations as well as internal culture and standards reform. The company was faulted for "clear and serious breach of the applicable procedural requirements."

A spokesperson for the city government added that the city was also looking into the broader question as to "whether a company's values and ethics should be considered during public procurement."

And now, the UK government is considering canceling Palantir’s contract with the NHS after over 200,000 individuals signed a protest petition against the company.

Silicon Valley workers are also organizing a pushback against ICE. Almost 2,500 Big Tech employees from companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI and SpaceX signed a January 2026 petition asking their employers to cut ties with ICE.

The negative publicity of doing business with ICE has caused a number of companies to reconsider. For example, Cap Gemini, a management consulting company based in Paris, France, sold off a U.S. affiliate that accepted ICE contracts to track down migrants for deportation after it faced scrutiny from the French parliament. Others like Avelo Airlines, based in Houston, Texas, announced that it would stop doing business with ICE. (Avelo sold off the planes used for deportation to Daedelus, another company which is supporting ICE's deportation operations.)

Private prison companies like CoreCivic have also faced opposition, notably to its 1,104-bed Midwest Regional Reception Center detention facility in Leavenworth, Kansas, where local residents were able to stall the company’s plans for one year. The city of Leavenworth sued the company in March 2025 for failing to consult with city officials and for not allowing the city to investigate alleged sexual assaults and other violent crimes. After a series of legal roadblocks, in March 2026, CoreCivic was awarded a permit by the city of Leavenworth to operate the detention center, on condition that it agree to a city-run oversight committee, a ban on the detention of children, and to provide a minimum number of staff.

Efforts to build new detention facilities for ICE have also faced strong headwinds. The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Kansas fired top management of its economic development corporation after it won a US$29.9 million federal contract to design potential ICE detention facilities. “We recognize the weight this news carries for so many, as well as the feelings of anger, confusion and disappointment it caused," the band said in a statement. “As a sovereign Nation, our values guide the decisions we make, and we acknowledge that this contract does not align with those principles."

And multiple local governments have acted to cancel real estate contracts with Newmark, a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump administration-linked firm Cantor Fitzgerald, after ICE attempted to buy empty warehouses to turn them into detention centers. For example the Choctaw Nation shut down an attempt by ICE to buy a 1.2 million square foot warehouse in Durant, Oklahoma, and protests by residents of Oklahoma City, forced the owners of OKC Logistics Park, a million square foot warehouse, to cancel another deal with Newmark.

“The owners of the property...confirmed to me this morning that they are no longer engaged with the Department of Homeland Security about a potential acquisition or lease of this property,” said David Holt, mayor of Oklahoma city in a press statement. “I commend the owners for their decision and thank them on behalf of the people of Oklahoma City. As Mayor, I ask that every single property owner in Oklahoma City exhibit the same concern for our community in the days ahead.”

To date, perhaps the greatest people power victory against the MAGA agenda, has been in the city of Minneapolis, where local residents braved snow and ice, tear gas and bullets in early 2026, to slowly but surely push ICE out of their city.

Kristi Noem, the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security at the time, was later unceremoniously fired, and Greg Bovino, the commander-at-large of the U.S. Border Patrol, was ousted from his role and forced into retirement.

"They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation," Jacob Frey, the mayor of the city, posted on Twitter. "These patriots of Minneapolis are showing that it's not just about resistance — standing with our neighbors is deeply American."

All That Glitters

A decade after the Make America Great Again launch, Trump threw a special event for supporters in May 2025. Those who bought the most $TRUMP meme crypto coins were invited to join him for an exclusive dinner at his Virginia golf club. Over 200 invested some US$191 million to attend.

Meme coins are a type of crypto investment. They started out as a joke among crypto investors to register a value to an idea (often a silly one) on the blockchain, which can then be traded and tracked. But they have no intrinsic value apart from what investors will pay for them. Donald Trump and Melania Trump launched coins just before his presidential inauguration in 2025 which soared in value immediately. Since the Trumps reserved a large quantity of the coins, they briefly held as much as US$20 billion worth of coins on paper, some of which they quickly sold to net US$350 million in profits.

But one year after the splashy Virginia party to celebrate Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrency, the $TRUMP meme coins crashed in value from a high of approximately US$75 to US$2.50 in May 2026, a 95 percent fall. Collectively investors in $TRUMP meme coins have lost an estimated US$3.9 billion, according to a report from Inca Digital, an industry research firm.

Meanwhile the Trump family’s other crypto projects like the WLF1 token (created by the family controlled-World Liberty Financial) have also crashed in value. WLF1 traded as high as US$0.45 in late August 2025 but lost some 80 percent of its value over the next few months to trade at about US$0.07 in early May 2026. The Trump family has stepped in to prop up the value of the tokens and block early investors from withdrawing their money.

Justin Sun, a crypto-investor who attended the May 2025 Virginia dinner with Trump after buying US$19 million worth of $TRUMP and some US$1 billion in WLF1 tokens, has sued Trump’s businesses for blocking him from cashing in.

Today, like Sun, even Trump’s most fervent backers – U.S. voters – are starting to get angry about their mounting losses from unabashed MAGA profiteering as food and gasoline prices soar. In early May veteran pollster Nate Silver put Trump’s approval rate at minus 18.6 percent.