GULF GAME

Google Bows to Trump’s Demand on ‘Gulf of America’ Maps Change

The search giant has also given $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee, paid pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, and rolled back AI and DEI policies to his liking.

The Gulf of Mexico has now been renamed the “Gulf of America” for U.S.-based users of Google Maps following an executive order by President Donald Trump.

Google, a subsidiary of Mountain View, California-based Alphabet, said it was recognizing Trump’s order in a statement Monday.

“People using Maps in the US will see ‘Gulf of America,’ and people in Mexico will see ‘Gulf of Mexico.’” the company said. “Everyone else will see both names.”

The search giant said last month that it has “a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”

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Google’s hasty compliance with Trump—who ordered the gulf renamed on Jan. 20 and declared Feb. 9 “Gulf of America Day”—is the latest in a series of seemingly friendly overtures aimed at the U.S. leader.

Google was one of a handful of Silicon Valley tech companies that donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration committee.

Sundar Pichai, Alphabet and Google’s CEO, attended Trump’s inauguration as part of a contingent of tech billionaires that included broligarchs Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Elon Musk.

During the transition period, Pichai was one of several business leaders to make a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to schmooze the president.

Pichai’s companies have since adopted a handful of internal policies that align with Trump administration pronouncements.

Earlier this month, Google scrapped its diversity hiring goals, citing the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI initiatives.

The company added, in a memo to employees, that it is “carefully evaluating” other DEI efforts that would “raise risk” for its status as a federal contractor, given the Trump administration’s position and a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action-based admissions at universities.

Google then dropped a pledge to bar its artificial intelligence technology from being used for weapons or surveillance, weeks after Trump rescinded an executive order by his predecessor, Joe Biden, that mandated AI safety practices.

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Google changed its default calendar settings to remove several events celebrating diverse groups, including June’s Pride Month, February’s Black History Month, and November’s Indigenous Peoples month.

While some users began noticing the absence of those events this year, Google told The Verge the calendar changes began rolling out last year because “maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable.”

The company said Google Calendar will display public and national holidays by default, while users can add other celebrations.

Accessed by The Daily Beast from France and Germany on Tuesday, Google Maps displayed the names Gulf of Mexico and Gulf of America, including in the French (Golfe d’Amérique) and German (Golf von Amerika) languages.

Google said last month that it also plans to change the name of the Alaska landmark Denali, the highest peak in the United States, to Mount McKinley, after Trump’s order that its name be reverted.

Former President Barack Obama officially designated the mountain in 2015 with the name given by the region’s native population.

Trump’s order blasted Obama’s act as “an affront to President McKinley’s life” and celebrated the late president because he, like Trump, “championed tariffs.”

As of Tuesday morning, Denali’s name had not been changed in Google Maps.

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