With Republican President Donald Trump’s return to office this year, Big Tech leaders from Silicon Valley’s largest companies — all fighting federal anti-monopoly lawsuits launched under Trump’s previous term and the Democratic Biden administration that followed — have made unprecedented peace offerings.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook sat behind Trump on his inauguration stage in January. Google and Meta, and Cook personally, donated $1 million each to his inauguration committee. Google and Meta have retreated from diversity programs and social media content moderation that the president has criticized.
But so far, the Trump administration is still using antitrust law to pursue anti-monopoly actions against the three companies and against Amazon, based in Washington state, which also backed off from diversity efforts and donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, where its executive chairman Jeff Bezos sat on stage beside Pichai.
“I have been encouraged that the administration has not fallen into the predictable pattern of prior Republican administrations taking a hands-off approach,” said Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley, who teaches antitrust law.
“It remains to be seen whether some of the tech billionaires sucking up to Trump, particularly Zuckerberg and Bezos, will persuade him to overrule his antitrust heads and drop their cases,” Lemley said, but he added “there are a number of indications that the Trump administration may continue aggressive antitrust enforcement, particularly against big tech.”
In a signal earlier this month that the legal actions targeting Silicon Valley may keep moving ahead in the second Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice repeated its demand, made under former President Joe Biden in November, that Google sell off its hugely popular and valuable Chrome internet browser.
“These cases are immensely consequential for these companies,” said Sam Weinstein, a former U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawyer and UC Berkeley law school fellow, now a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York City. “Google and Meta face the possibility of being broken up.”
Changes sought by the government in the Apple lawsuit appear “less of an existential threat,” Weinstein said, “but it would still be a significant loss for the company.” Amazon’s business model and structure are also at risk, he added.
In 2020, the Justice Department sued Google over its internet search apps and related advertising, alleging deals it made with companies, including device manufacturers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T were intended to maintain a monopoly that strips choice from consumers.
Google in a 2023 blog post called the lawsuit “deeply flawed,” arguing that “people don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to.” In August, Washington, D.C., federal court Judge Amit Mehta ruled “Google is a monopolist.” Mehta will weigh the Justice Department’s demand to force a sale of Chrome. Evidentiary hearings are to start April 21.
In 2023, the Justice Department again sued Google, claiming the Mountain View digital-advertising giant holds a monopoly on software that puts ads on web pages. Google in a 2023 court filing denied it has such a monopoly and said in a September blog post, “We already go above and beyond legal requirements in making tools that others can use.”
The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Apple claimed the Cupertino iPhone titan “illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones” through conduct making it harder for consumers to switch to other companies’ devices. The lawsuit asked the court to limit Apple’s control over app distribution and bar contracts with third parties that support an alleged monopoly.
Apple in an August court filing claimed the lawsuit was “based on the false premise that iPhone’s success has come not through building a superior product that consumers trust and love, but through Apple’s intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats.”
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s 2020 lawsuit against Meta’s Facebook alleged the Menlo Park social media behemoth holds a monopoly it has protected via purchase of budding rival Instagram in 2012 and messaging app WhatsApp two years later. That case in Washington, D.C., federal court is scheduled for trial April 14, with Meta CEO Zuckerberg set to testify.
The FTC in a 2021 court filing demanded Meta be ordered to sell or “reconstruct” Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta this week told this news organization it was confident that “evidence at trial will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers,” and that the FTC action shows “businesses can be punished for innovating.”
Amazon, accused by the FTC in a 2023 lawsuit of “exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging,” said in a court filing last year that its matching of rivals’ discounts, recommendations of competitively priced offers, and fast, reliable shipping are “commonplace” and promote competition.
As the cases progress, many eyes are on Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department antitrust division, Gail Slater. She is a former FTC lawyer and former head attorney for a now-defunct Big Tech lobby group, and was confirmed March 11 by the U.S. Senate to head the department. In written responses to Senate questions before her confirmation, Slater said she would prioritize anti-monopoly enforcement against Big Tech.
The FTC declined this week to say whether it was committed to its antitrust cases, and the Justice Department did not respond to questions.
Should federal agencies drop antitrust cases against the tech firms, co-plaintiff state attorneys general in the Apple, Google and Amazon cases could keep the lawsuits alive. But, said Stanford’s Lemley, courts would be less likely to force major structural changes on the companies, and some Republican-led states could drop out.
How important the cases are to the Trump administration is an open question, Weinstein said.
“The list of things that are on the administration’s mind is very long,” Weinstein said, “and antitrust might be very far down to the bottom.”
Originally Published:
Source: Paradise Post
