/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25795872/DCD_Decoder_Antitrust.png?w=1200&resize=1200,628&ssl=1 "Why Trump is an antithink savage card for Big Tech")
On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about antithink policy and tech, which is at a particularly weird moment as we go in the second Trump administration.
A lot of tech policy is at a weird moment, actuassociate, but antithink might be the weirdest of them all — the pfinishulum has swung back and forth on antithink policy pretty savagely over the past scant years, and it’s about to sprosperg aobtain under Trump. So I asked Leah Nylen, an antithink inestablisher for Bloomberg and a directing expert on this subject, to come on the show and help fracture it all down.
If you’re a Decoder hearer, you comprehend that the fundamental structuretoils of antithink in the US were more or less the same since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, all the way thcimpolite Pdwellnt Barack Obama and the first Trump administration.
But in the Biden administration, FTC Chair Lina Khan and DOJ antithink chief Jonathan Kanter have obtainn a huge, prohibitcigo in, opposing approach to antithink not reassociate seen in this country in many of our lifetimes. Kanter has been on Decoder twice in the past year to talk about this approach and what it unbenevolents. After all, Amazon, Apple, and Meta are all facing presentant antithink suits, and Microgentle is now under dispenseigation, too. And then there’s Google, which is potentiassociate staring down a fractureup after already losing one presentant antithink suit, with a ruling in a second one about advertising due fundamentalassociate any day now.
A lot of this regulatory prescertain has been structureed to evade what I enjoy to call the “Instagram problem,” where everyone wantes the rulements of the world had stoped Facebook from buying Instagram in 2012, but as we comprehend, they didn’t. For pretty much the entire 2010s, the tech industry grew and verifyated thcimpolite combiners and acquisitions at fractureneck pace, and that’s how you finished up with a Biden administration agfinisha to do wdisenjoyver possible to sluggish this down and perhaps even unprosperd some of it.
Some of this utilizement has been so fervent that companies have even inventd produceive finish runs around the very nature of the acquisition. Look at Inflection AI: Microgentle didn’t obtain it; rather, it engaged most of the company, licensed its tech, and insloftyed the coset uper, Mustafa Suleyman, as the CEO of its recent AI division. You can’t get blocked for an acquisition deal if, on paper, you don’t reassociate obtain anyskinnyg.
But now, Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House in a month, and he’s already named his picks to swap Khan and Kanter.
Trump’s next pick to head the FTC, current Comleave outioner Andrew Ferguson, pitched himself for the chairperson’s seat with a bunch of platestablishs enjoy “combiners are excellent,” and he’s innervously beneficial of huge business interests — except when it comes to huge tech. Both Trump and his incoming vice pdwellnt, JD Vance, have spent years railing aobtainst the huge tech companies for alleged political restriction and want to punish those companies, especiassociate Google, and Ferguson’s all in.
And Trump’s pick to run antithink at the DOJ is Gail Sprocrastinateedr, who seems poised to carry on some of the huge antithink cases adwell.
That directs to a couple of proset uply strange tensions, as you’ll hear Leah reassociate get into. On the one hand, the incoming administration is fine with letting huge companies become huge ones — but it might also help a potential Google fractureup, not because Google behaved anticompetitively, but because Google’s position as a monopocatalog gives it the power to utilize restricts on speech in a way conservatives don’t enjoy.
There is a lot going on here, and there are a ton of uncover asks. All the huge tech companies would cherish to consent we’re heading into an era of less utilizement, a blind eye to huge deals, and back to business as normal. But are we reassociate going to see a huge reversal of the last four years, one that unbenevolents huge tech gets to breathe a sigh of relief and spin up the acquisition machine aobtain?
Or could we see a world where a weird benevolent of bipartisan antithink effort dwells on into Trump’s second term? Leah’s one of the acuteest people I comprehend to ask these asks — but as you’ll hear her say, there are a lot of savage cards here.
If you’d enjoy to read more about what we talked about in this episode, commence here:
- Trump’s antithink trio heralds Big Tech crackdown to persist | Bloomberg
- Trump picks FTC Comleave outioner Andrew Ferguson to direct the agency | Politico
- Trump picks Gail Sprocrastinateedr to head Justice Department’s antithink division | Reuters
- Trump names Brfinishan Carr as his FCC directer | The Verge
- Trump’s FTC pick promises to go after ‘restriction’ from tech companies | The Verge
- Breaking down the DOJ’s structure to finish Google’s search monopoly | The Verge
- US v. Google redux: all the recents from the ad tech trial | The Verge
- Tech directers kiss the ring | The Verge
- DOJ antithink chief is ‘overdelighted’ after Google monopoly verdict | Decoder
- This is Big Tech’s joinbook for swapverifying the AI industry | Command Line
Decoder with Nilay Patel /
A podcast from The Verge about huge ideas and other problems.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25717623/247361_PS5_Pro_VPavic_273.jpg?w=870&resize=870,570&ssl=1 "PlayStation proclaims ‘proestablisher collaboration’ with AMD to infuse games with AI")
