A series of recent high-profile confrontations between tech leaders and national governments has thrust the uneasy relationship between big tech and state power into the spotlight.
From Elon Musk’s very public spat with Brazilian authorities to the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France, tech CEOs are increasingly finding themselves in the crosshairs of geopolitical tensions.
These events are raising questions about the balance of power between global technology platforms and national sovereignty in an interconnected world.
Pavel Durov’s arrest
In August, Pavel Durov, the founder of messaging platform Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget Airport north of Paris. French authorities, acting on a warrant from the public prosecutor’s office, took the 39-year-old tech entrepreneur into custody. The charges leveled against Durov are extensive and serious, ranging from complicity in enabling illegal transactions to laundering proceeds from organised crime.
The arrest sent shockwaves through the tech industry. Durov, a UAE citizen, has long positioned himself as a champion of privacy and free speech. Telegram’s encryption features have made it popular among dissidents and privacy advocates, but have also drawn criticism from governments concerned about its potential for misuse by criminal elements.
French President Emmanuel Macron was quick to emphasise that Durov’s arrest was not politically motivated, stating it was part of an ongoing independent investigation. “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will remain so,” Macron wrote on X.
“The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”
The UAE government, for its part, is closely monitoring the situation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has requested that French authorities provide Durov with all necessary consular services, underscoring the geopolitical sensitivities at play.
Musk vs. Brazil
While Durov’s legal troubles were unfolding in France, another tech titan was embroiled in a heated confrontation halfway across the world. Elon Musk, the mercurial owner of X (formerly Twitter), found himself locked in a war of words with Brazilian authorities over content moderation and free speech.
The conflict reached a boiling point when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the “immediate and complete suspension” of X in Brazil. The ban came after the platform failed to comply with court orders to remove accounts accused of spreading misinformation and undermining democratic institutions.
Musk, true to form, did not take the ban lying down. He launched a barrage of incendiary tweets, calling de Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.” The tech billionaire’s rhetoric escalated to the point of threatening “reciprocal seizure of government assets” in response to court orders against his businesses.
The ban on X left an estimated 22 million Brazilian users unable to access the platform, sparking a heated debate about free speech, content moderation, and the limits of governmental authority online.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva weighed in, asserting that all individuals and companies operating in Brazil must comply with the country’s laws. “He can’t go around insulting presidents, insulting deputies, insulting the Senate, insulting the Chamber, insulting the Supreme Court,” Lula said of Musk. “Who does he think he is?”
Tech faces geopolitical pressure
These high-profile cases are not isolated incidents, but rather signs of a broader shift in the geopolitical landscape of technology, according to geopolitical strategist and founder of The Geopolitical Business Inc., Abishur Prakash, who sees them as part of a larger trend.
“Governments are recognising the power of technology to change the balance of power,” Prakash told Arabian Business.
“Before, this was purely conceptual or narrow. But now, every geopolitical crisis has technology embedded in it on some level, from US-China tensions around AI and TikTok to Israeli-Iranian conflicts involving hacking.”
This convergence of geopolitics and technology, which Prakash terms “Next Geopolitics,” is redrawing the boundaries of national influence. He pointed to examples like Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, being partly governed by City Brain, an AI system from Chinese tech giant Alibaba. “Through technology, China’s footprint extends into Southeast Asia in a new way,” Prakash said.
The targeting of tech CEOs by Western governments is a particularly significant development in this new landscape.
One of the biggest implications, Prakash said, “is that Western technology executives have a heightened risk of being arrested,” which could, in turn, jeopardise future tech investments coming into the West. This risk could also extend beyond the West’s traditional adversaries to potentially include countries aligned with those adversaries.
“From Silicon Valley to London to Tokyo, Western technology executives have to brace themselves for government scrutiny and action in geographies aligned with Western adversaries. Just as Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, was detained in France, could an American technology executive be detained in Azerbaijan, who is aligned with Moscow?” he added.
In light of these recent events, tech regulation seems to be undergoing rapid change, with governments increasingly wielding the threat of bans as a primary tool rather than a last resort. According to Prakash, this change “alters the entire calculation for tech companies when it comes to expansion or lobbying.”
Historically, established tech giants operated with a degree of confidence that outright bans were unlikely. However, the paradigm, Prakash believes, has shifted dramatically. “The idea of being banned was seldom dangled on the heads of established technology giants. However, if this is how capitals are thinking” tech firms are now forced to reassess their global strategies.
This new reality, he said, means that technology companies “will be forced to… adopt a new outlook as to the role governments envision for them.”
A new era of corporate responsibility?
The confrontations between tech leaders and national governments echo, in some ways, the tobacco industry’s reckoning in the late 20th century. Just as tobacco executives were called to account for the societal impacts of their products, tech CEOs are now facing increased scrutiny and potential legal consequences for the effects of their platforms on democracy, public discourse, and national security.
Mahdi Jasim Ghuloom, a Regional Security Analyst at Le Beck International, sees these developments as part of a longer-term trend. “National governments have always been involved in getting tech companies to comply with their national interests,” he said.
“For example, the head of Saudi’s AI fund reportedly said that they would divest from China and keep supply chains separate between US companies and Chinese companies if asked to do so.”
The difference now, Ghuloom suggested, is the intensity of the conflict and the tools governments are willing to use.
“I think the important development here is that ineffective content moderation has now become a prime reason to target them,” he said.
For tech companies, these developments present significant challenges. The global nature of their platforms often clashes with the localised demands of national governments. Strategies that may appease authorities in one jurisdiction could run afoul of regulations or public opinion in another.
Prakash suggested that one consequence of this new reality could be a reorientation of technological alliances. “As US platforms are banned, or choose to leave a market, governments may not fret the way they once did,” he said.
“And, with geopolitics playing a constant role, countries could reorient themselves technologically. In the case of Brazil, it might turn to China, a BRICS partner.”
Ghuloom advises that tech companies might need to adopt strategies such as diversifying their partnerships to navigate this evolving landscape.
“Companies like G42 in the UAE are adjusting their international collaborations to align with national interests while still seeking to advance in the global tech arena,” he said.
“The challenge is for governments to allow tech companies to commit to a balancing act where needed, and for companies to be aware of political and policy dynamics globally.”
The road ahead
As the dust settles on these recent confrontations, it’s clear that the relationship between Big Tech and national governments has entered a new, more contentious phase, according to experts. The era of relatively unfettered expansion for global tech platforms appears to be giving way to a period of increased regulation, scrutiny, and potential legal jeopardy for tech leaders.
For Pavel Durov, the immediate future involves navigating the French legal system while being prohibited from leaving the country. Elon Musk faces the challenge of rebuilding X’s presence in Brazil while managing the fallout from his confrontational approach.
“Technology companies are being viewed as pawns in geopolitics, to be played on the global chessboard. This outlook only existed in China, but is spreading into the West too,” said Prakash.
“The reason is that geopolitics has reached a critical juncture. It is being accepted across the world, that there is no going back to the old status quoe environment.”
The broader implications of these events are still unfolding. Will we see a fragmentation of the global internet as national governments assert more control over digital spaces? How will tech companies balance their global ambitions with the demands of local authorities? And what does this mean for users caught in the middle of these power struggles?
One thing seems certain: the days of tech CEOs operating with relative impunity on the global stage are waning.
As governments around the world flex their regulatory muscles, the tech industry may indeed be facing its “tobacco moment” – a watershed era of increased accountability and scrutiny. How Big Tech navigates this new reality will shape not only the future of the industry but also the contours of global geopolitics in the digital age.
Follow us on
