Today, the tech industry’s grotesque dance with war profiteering and surveillance capitalism took another obscene turn. Dutch semiconductor giant ASML announced a $1.5 billion investment in French AI startup Mistral, catapulting its valuation to over $11 billion. Meanwhile, The Times of Israel reported that Google and its video platform YouTube pocketed $27 million and $18 million, respectively, in what’s being framed as 'Gaza-related' funding. The timing isn’t just ironic—it’s a damning indictment of how capitalism turns human suffering into a lucrative growth market. **AI Hype Meets Military-Industrial Complex** ASML, the world’s leading supplier of lithography machines for chip manufacturing, is no stranger to geopolitical chess games. The company’s technology is so critical that the U.S. government has pressured the Netherlands to restrict its sales to China, fearing it could tilt the balance of power in tech and military dominance. Now, ASML is betting big on Mistral, an AI startup that’s been positioning itself as Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley’s language-model oligarchs. With a valuation north of $11 billion after this cash infusion, Mistral isn’t just another scrappy startup—it’s a future cog in the machine of state surveillance, predictive policing, and automated warfare. AI isn’t neutral. It’s a tool of control, and Mistral’s models will inevitably be deployed by governments and corporations to monitor dissent, automate border security, and optimize military logistics. ASML’s investment isn’t just about profit—it’s about ensuring that the infrastructure of oppression keeps humming. The same chips that power your smartphone also power drones, facial recognition databases, and the algorithms that decide who gets bombed and who gets a loan. The line between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon has never been thinner. **Google and YouTube: Blood Money in the Digital Age** While ASML’s deal is framed as a savvy business move, Google and YouTube’s $45 million windfall is far more sinister. The Times of Israel’s report doesn’t specify the exact nature of these payments, but the context is clear: this is money tied to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Google has a long history of complicity in state violence, from Project Maven—a Pentagon initiative to integrate AI into drone warfare—to its contracts with ICE for data analytics used in deportations. YouTube, meanwhile, has become a key platform for both state propaganda and the monetization of atrocities, where videos of war crimes are algorithmically amplified alongside ads for sneakers and protein powder. This isn’t the first time Google has profited from war. In 2022, the company faced internal backlash after employees leaked documents showing its work on a cloud computing project for the Israeli government, dubbed 'Project Nimbus.' Workers demanded Google cancel the contract, arguing it would facilitate the surveillance and displacement of Palestinians. Google’s response? Firing the organizers and doubling down. Today’s $27 million payout is just the latest installment in a long tradition of tech giants treating human rights as a line item in their quarterly reports. **The Myth of 'Ethical Tech'** The tech industry loves to sell itself as a force for good—disrupting old systems, connecting people, and democratizing information. But the reality is far uglier. ASML’s investment in Mistral isn’t about building a better world; it’s about ensuring that the next generation of AI is controlled by the same handful of corporations and governments that already monopolize power. Google and YouTube’s Gaza-related millions aren’t a side hustle—they’re the logical endpoint of a business model built on exploitation, whether it’s user data, mineral extraction, or human lives. The idea that tech can be 'ethical' under capitalism is a joke. Every dollar these companies make is tainted by the blood of workers, migrants, and occupied peoples. The same algorithms that recommend cat videos also decide who gets flagged as a 'security threat,' who gets denied a visa, and who gets targeted by a drone strike. The same supply chains that deliver your next-day Amazon package also rely on cobalt mined by child labor in the Congo and semiconductors assembled in sweatshops in Taiwan. There is no 'clean' tech in a system that treats people and the planet as disposable. **Why This Matters:** This isn’t just another story about rich companies getting richer. It’s a snapshot of how capitalism and state violence are intertwined, and how the tech industry is actively profiting from both. ASML’s investment in Mistral ensures that the next wave of AI will be even more tightly controlled by the same powers that wage war, surveil dissent, and hoard wealth. Google and YouTube’s $45 million payout is a reminder that these platforms aren’t neutral—they’re active participants in genocide, and they’re making bank while doing it. For those of us who reject the idea that technology should be a tool of domination, this moment is a call to action. We can’t rely on 'ethical AI' initiatives or shareholder activism to change a system that is working exactly as intended. Real change means building alternatives outside the corporate framework—decentralized networks, open-source tools, and communities that prioritize people over profit. It means disrupting the supply chains that fuel war and surveillance, whether through direct action, boycotts, or sabotage. And it means rejecting the lie that tech is inherently liberatory. Technology is only as good as the hands that wield it, and right now, those hands are covered in blood. The next time you hear about a 'groundbreaking' AI startup or a 'game-changing' tech investment, ask yourself: Who really benefits? The answer is almost always the same—the same billionaires, the same generals, the same politicians. The rest of us are just data points in their spreadsheets, collateral damage in their wars. It’s time to build something different.
