Big Tech Profits: When Liquidity Becomes Power

Source: Corriere della Sera – Mediobanca, “Big Tech, Profits Reach $790 Billion”, 12 December 2025

A concentration that is no longer merely economic

Data from Mediobanca’s Research Area offer a stark picture: in just three years, the world’s 119 largest digital groups have accumulated $790 billion in profits. But the figure that truly changes perspective is another one: the vast majority of this wealth has been generated by only 25 Big Tech companies, each capable of producing daily profits amounting to tens of millions of dollars. This is no longer a dynamic sector—it is a highly concentrated system.

The choice not to redistribute

How is this mass of liquidity used? Around half of it—over $400 billion—is invested in short-term financial instruments, often U.S. government bonds. A choice that signals prudence, but also stagnation. These funds do not meaningfully fuel new employment, broad-based innovation or social infrastructure; they are parked, shielded, and effectively withdrawn from the productive cycle.

Big Tech as systemic financial actors

When a small number of private companies become major holders of public debt, their role changes in nature. They are no longer simply market players, but global financial hubs. Mediobanca makes this clear: the weight of Big Tech in public debt reveals an influence that can also become political. It is a silent power—unelected, yet structurally significant.

The myth of innovation as justification

For years, the extraordinary profitability of Big Tech has been justified in the name of innovation. But innovation that primarily produces financial accumulation and power concentration risks losing its social function. The digital economy, born as a promise of openness and democratisation, has gradually turned into a mechanism for value extraction and preservation.

The democratic problem

The central issue is not how much these companies earn, but the space they occupy in collective balances. No Big Tech company has received a democratic mandate to exert such profound influence over markets, states and public policy. And yet, in practice, they do. Without political transparency, without public accountability, and without adequate counterweights.

Why Algopolio focuses on these numbers

For Algopolio, these figures are not merely an economic snapshot, but a political signal. When power concentrates without being named, regulated or debated, it becomes opaque. And opacity is incompatible with a healthy democracy.

The problem is not wealth in itself.The problem is who decides how it is used—and for whose benefit.