The US government long had the nation’s biggest tech giants in its sights, and in 2024, it hit bull’s-eye.
The big victory came in August when the Justice Department convinced a federal district court judge that Google (GOOG, GOOGL) had abused its search engine dominance and violated antitrust law.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
It was the government’s most resounding antitrust victory against any major company since prosecutors went after AT&T in the 1980s and Microsoft in the 1990s.
Prosecutors then asked the same judge to force Google’s parent Alphabet to sell off parts of its empire, a dramatic request that will play out in a separate phase of the trial in 2025. The end result could be the dismantling of a glittering Silicon Valley empire amassed over two decades.
What transpired in 2024 could have future implications for some of the other big names in the tech world.
Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) are all defending themselves against a series of other federal- and state-led antitrust suits, some of which make similar claims.
For now, Wall Street doesn’t appear rattled. The so-called Magnificent Seven stocks of the world’s largest technology companies helped push the market higher in 2024, thanks partly to advancements around artificial intelligence.
They include Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), and Alphabet. Alphabet, in fact, hit an all-time record high this month.
Some legal experts argue that the government’s antitrust gains in 2024 are still too premature to seriously rattle the gigantic tech companies.
“The Biden administration has moved antitrust down the field in some ways,” said University of Tennessee law professor Maurice Stucke. “But are we in the end zone? No.”
The cases that allege companies acted illegally to maintain a monopoly take years to work through the justice system. The more present dangers for tech giants, Stucke said, are the chances that the government will try to block newly proposed mergers or that their businesses could be eclipsed by AI startups.
“That sends them greater chills than any regulator,” Stucke said. “They don’t want to be the next Intel.”
Amy Bos, director of state and federal affairs for technology sector advocate NetChoice (which also represents Yahoo Finance), agreed that the government’s merger challenges pose the most looming threats.
“It shows in the boardrooms,” she said. “I think there’s increased hesitation by companies whether to merge, whether to grow their business, because they may come under increased scrutiny.”
Could that change once President-elect Donald Trump takes office?
There is uncertainty surrounding that question. Trump, after all, has made it clear he doesn’t intend to ease up on the nation’s technology giants once he is back in the Oval Office.
“Big Tech has run wild for years,” Trump said in a statement after nominating Gail Slater, an aide to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
The industry, he added, is “stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech!”
“I was proud to fight these abuses in my First Term, and our Department of Justice’s antitrust team will continue that work under Gail’s leadership,” he added.
It was Trump’s first administration that initially sued Google over antitrust concerns, which led to a ruling by a district court judge in August that the tech giant illegally monopolized the search engine market.
It was also during Trump’s first administration that the Federal Trade Commission sought to unwind Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in a case set for trial in April.
Trump’s first administration also launched an antitrust investigation into Apple (APPL), leading the Biden administration to sue the iPhone maker earlier this year.
Another ominous sign for Big Tech is that last month Trump nominated Brendan Carr as Federal Communications Commission chair in addition to Slater’s appointment to the DOJ’s antitrust division.
Just days before he got that chairmanship appointment, Carr sent letters to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook predicting “broad ranging actions to restore Americans’ First Amendment rights” once Trump takes office.
Many of these CEOs have spent time since Trump’s election trying to win the favor of the president-elect, meeting him in person at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort or donating large sums to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Trump has sent some mixed messages about how far he wants to go to hold tech firms accountable.
While campaigning, he was asked whether he supported a breakup of Google as an antidote to unhealthy competition in the search engine market. Trump suggested that Google’s punishment could be accomplished without forcing it to sell off parts of its empire.
“What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said in an Oct. 15 interview. The former president described Google’s search engine as “rigged” and expressed concern that consequences for Google in the case could favor China.
Google’s CEO, Pichai, said of Trump that “in my conversations with him, he’s definitely very focused on American competitiveness, particularly in technology, including AI.”
When asked at a New York Times DealBook summit in New York if Trump’s election changes the dynamic for Google’s antitrust case, he said, “This is a DOJ case, and the case is already in court,” noting that it started under Trump’s first term.
“So I don’t have any particular insights into that.” The company, he added, will “defend ourselves there.”
Stucke, the University of Tennessee law professor, predicted that antitrust enforcement will continue to be much more aggressive than it was under the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.
“Even though antitrust may not be the same under Trump as it is under Biden, it’s not going to go back to the way it was.”
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
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