Donald Trump’s White House win could have a major impact on antitrust regulation and US policy toward the tech sector – including a pair of pending Justice Department cases against Google.
Trump – a longtime Google critic who has accused the search giant of political bias and election interference – has nevertheless expressed reluctance to break up the company of late. That’s despite the fact that the DOJ’s case targeting its online search monopoly began in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office.
“It’d a very dangerous thing because we want to have great companies,” Trump said during an event in Chicago last month. “We don’t want China to have these companies. Right now, China is afraid of Google.”
On Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was among a number of tech CEOs who congratulated Trump on his White House win.
“Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his decisive victory,” Pichai wrote. “We are in a golden age of American innovation and are committed to working with his administration to help bring the benefits to everyone.”
Google currently faces a pair of Justice Department antitrust cases that could upend its business – one targeting its online search empire and another focused on its digital advertising business. The DOJ also has a pending antitrust lawsuit against Apple, while the Federal Trade Commission is suing Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Amazon.
US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google has an illegal monopoly over online search. However, a separate trial to determine appropriate remedies will stretch into Trump’s first term in office – with Mehta not expected to make a decision until next summer.
The timeline means would give Trump – and his DOJ appointees – the means to adjust their strategy.
“He is certainly in the position to control the DOJ’s disposition of the remedies phase,” William Kovacic, a Republican and former Federal Trade Commission chair under George W. Bush, told Reuters.
Last month, the DOJ said floated a forced selloff of parts of Google’s business, such as its Chrome web browser, among the remedies the court could pursue.
During a recent interview with Joe Rogan, Trump bragged that Pichai had called to compliment him about the popularity of YouTube videos showing the Republican’s recent campaigns stop serving fries at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
Trump referred to both Google and Apple as “great companies” during a conversation with radio host Hugh Hewitt. He said that Apple CEO Tim Cook had recently called him to complain about the billions of dollars in fines his company currently faces in Europe.
The president-elect also slammed the European Union for stepping up regulatory enforcement against US tech firms.
“If you look at Google lately, I think you’re going to see they’ve become much more inclined towards Trump,” he said. “They’re starting to like Trump, because they’re starting to get it.”
To the surprise of many, Trump has also expressed skepticism about the ongoing effort in Congress to force a divestment or ban of China-owned TikTok. The legal fight over the app’s future is currently tied up in federal court.
More broadly, Trump’s presidency is expected to result in a looser regulatory environment for tech firms.
That includes the various companies led by billionaire Elon Musk, who became a major ally and megadonor for the Trump campaigns. During the Biden administration, Musk had complained regularly about the red tape that SpaceX and Tesla have faced.
Trump has signaled he would appoint Musk to serve as the leader of a new “government efficiency commission” to slash wasteful spending and regulations at the federal level.
Trump is also virtually certain to replace FTC chair Lina Khan and SEC chair Gary Gensler – each of whom had roiled top business executives by leading aggressive crackdowns on everything from mergers and acquisitions to cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.
With Post wires
