Here are a couple of things I’d worry about, especially with an administration willing to use its power in ways previously considered off limits:

1. Any company which doesn’t is banned from federal contracts

2. Any company which doesn’t is declared a supply chain risk and federal contractors will be prohibited from doing business with them (e.g. AWS/Azure/GCP can’t offer them to customers without risking their unrelated contracts). That was the big risk Anthropic was worried about.

3. Federal prosecutors and regulators will be told to prioritize going after non-compliant companies on unrelated issues as leverage.

4. These companies will not be granted the same exceptions in tariff negotiations as competitors, which means things like data center buildouts get pricier.

Even if they can successfully fight something in court, that’s expensive and uncertain so it puts a lot of pressure on companies. There are likely also cases where politicized tax or H1-B enforcement could be hard to fight in court because much of the industry is gambling on lax enforcement.

Because EO can get annoying to fight, companies would prefer to not fighting it. That's why these actions are to be remembered, companies will complain, but they will also comply.

They shouldn't but they've all shown they lack the fortitude to stand up to Trump. All the big tech companies are run by cowards willing to sacrifice ethics for money.