Trump’s Big Tech bros beamed onto EU building in protest against digital rights rollback
NGO coalition – including Greenpeace International, People vs Big Tech, European Digital Rights (EDRi), and WeMove Europe – sound alarm over Big Tech’s influence ahead of the EU summit.
Fight for Us, Not for Trump's Billionaires!” stunt visual in the European Quarter in Brussels, 17 June 2026. © People vs Big Tech. Projection image credits: Donald Trump: Official White House Photo (Public Domain) | Elon Musk: Gage Skidmore, CC BY 2.0 | Mark Zuckerberg: Anthony Quintano, CC BY 2.0
BRUSSELS, Wednesday 17 June – On the eve of the EU summit, where geopolitical uncertainty and strategic sovereignty are top of the agenda, a broad coalition of civil society groups projected a message onto a prominent EU quarter building calling on leaders to “Fight for Us, Not for Trump’s Billionaires!”.
The action comes at a critical juncture for the EU, two weeks after the European Commission released a draft Tech Sovereignty package and days before EU ambassadors are set to finalise their position on the Digital Omnibus [on 26 June] amid deregulation concerns. Europe’s digital regulations have repeatedly come under fire from US President Donald Trump during the tariff negotiations with the EU, where his administration has described them as “Orwellian”.
“This is a moral choice: will leaders protect people’s privacy, safety and democratic rights, or will they bend to billionaire power? Europe cannot claim to defend sovereignty while handing over more power to billionaire tech bros. It’s time to resist Big Tech’s unparalleled overreach” said Sanna Ghotbi, campaigner at Greenpeace International.
Roughly half of Europeans polled by YouGov in 2025 believe Big Tech is more powerful than the EU, and approximately two-thirds of those polled in January 2026 say Europe should prioritise protecting online safety and digital privacy over maintaining relationships with the United States. At the same time, Europe currently relies on non-EU providers for over 80% of its key digital infrastructure, with the bulk of European data stored on US cloud service providers.
“You cannot declare digital sovereignty with one hand and tear up its legal foundations with the other," said Ava Lee, Executive Director of People vs. Big Tech. "The GDPR, the AI Act, and the ePrivacy framework are the rulebooks that protect citizens and give Europe control over its own digital future. Weaken them and the EU’S tech sovereignty package isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on”.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz presented a joint-strategy for tech sovereignty in Paris this week.
"Merz and Macron promised us digital sovereignty, so they must push back against the Commission’s drive to gut the very rules that uphold that sovereignty. You do not get to champion European independence while promoting the interests of Silicon Valley. This is an opportunity for European leaders to rise to the challenge and put their people before Trump’s billionaires" said Taïme Smit Pellure, Campaigner for WeMove Europe.
A similar group staged a mobile billboard stunt in Brussels in November, protesting the rollback of the EU’s digital rules, pointing to Trump and Big Tech’s bullying. WeMove Europe, a European campaign organisation, has collected almost 100,000 signatures calling on the European Commission to reject any weakening of the EU’s digital rulebooks.
The coalition behind the action today includes a growing number of NGOs, including People vs Big Tech, Greenpeace International, WeMove Europe, the Balanced Economy Project, Rebalance Now, Lobby Control, and European Digital Rights (EDRi).
– ENDS –
NOTES TO EDITORS
Please note, initial images and videos of the stunt will be available in this folder upon embargo release. Additional images and b-roll will be available early afternoon the following day (18 June).
For media interviews, please contact [email protected]
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