Tax the Oil, Spare the Tech

In November 2025, the Treasury raised the threshold at which the corporate alternative minimum tax applies, from $500 million to $800 million in profits, and exempted digital-asset gains from the tax entirely. The change was made by rule, not by Congress, and it handed hundreds of billions in tax relief to multinationals, private equity firms, and crypto companies. In August 2026, the same administration was backing windfall taxes on oil companies, one bill named the Iran War Oil Crisis Windfall Profits Tax Act, and two more, including a 100% tax on oil sold above $75 a barrel and a 25% excise on stock buybacks. ^[1][2] Quiet is the signature of the first channel. Alphabet and Meta each paid $22 million toward the White House ballroom and presidential library as legal settlements; afterward the Justice Department withdrew restrictions on Google's AI collaborations and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau closed its investigation into Meta's advertising practices. ^[3] Trump personally pressed Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Palantir for up to $50 million each. ^[4] Nvidia agreed to pay the government 15% of its H20 chip sales in China in exchange for eased export restrictions. ^[5] Apple's Tim Cook committed $100 billion in US investment to secure tariff protections, and Intel's Lip-Bu Tan gave $10 billion to avoid being targeted for ouster. ^[6] Trump described the Intel meeting in his own words.

He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. — Donald Trump

The second channel runs in the opposite register. In August, Trump demanded ExxonMobil and Chevron cut retail prices and return some of their profits to consumers, citing roughly $27 billion in combined second-quarter profits. ^[7] In July he ordered the Justice Department to investigate the industry for price-gouging. ^[8] He also issued four pipeline permits and reopened 13 million acres in Alaska for drilling, so the pressure on oil companies was not the whole story. ^[9][10] The hinge is that the oil windfall serves both channels at once. The same Iran-war price spike that generated the profits the administration can tax and attack also generated the consumer pain it can campaign on. Wood Mackenzie put the sector's 2026 cash windfall at $495 billion. ^[2] Trump has been candid about the contradiction.

They’re making too much money, I don’t like it and I should be the last one to say it cause I’m a big free enterprise guy. — Donald Trump

Trump released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a record pace, draining reserves by 10% to 374 million barrels, the lowest since the early 1980s. ^[11] He described the drawdown himself.

The strategic national reserves, which I filled up, have been virtually drained in order to keep gasoline prices lower, just prior to the election. — Donald Trump