Four major tech CEOs are testifying Wednesday before a House antitrust subcommittee that is examining their power in the marketplace.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai used their opening statements to defend the size and behavior of their companies, which are being examined as potential monopolies.
The hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law began at around 1 p.m. ET and is expected to go on for several hours, as up to 15 members of the subcommittee have a chance to question the executives under oath.
Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., began the hearing by calling the CEOs “emperors.”
“Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy,” Cicilline said. He said the companies have too much power, limiting innovation and choking consumer choice.
Cicilline focused his initial questions on Google, alleging that the search engine company had evolved over the years “from a turnstile for the rest of the web to a walled garden,” keeping users on Google’s own pages rather than sending them elsewhere.
Pichai pushed back, saying there was vigorous competition among webpages and that users’ needs come first. “We have always focused on providing users with the most relevant information,” he said.
The hearing is an unusual collection of wealth and influence. Two of the four CEOs, Bezos and Zuckerberg, are among the wealthiest people in the world, with more than $265 billion in accumulated wealth between them, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Their presence alone makes the hearing likely the biggest concentration of corporate wealth ever to appear before Congress.
The corporations they lead are among the world's most valuable and influential, touching the daily lives of billions of people and piling up huge profits even during a pandemic. Apple is currently valued at $1.6 trillion, Amazon $1.5 trillion, Google’s parent Alphabet at $1.04 trillion and Facebook at about $656 billion.
President Donald Trump said in a tweet that he was considering executive orders if Congress does not act.
“In Washington, it has been ALL TALK and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our Country are sick and tired of it!” he said.
Trump has tangled at times with Bezos, attacking the executive over negative coverage of him in the Bezos-owned Washington Post. Amazon has blamed Trump’s personal attacks for its failure to land a major government contract last year, and it’s suing over the lost deal.
Trump has had somewhat warmer relationships with Zuckerberg, whom he has hosted for a White House dinner, and with Cook, whom he once called “Tim Apple.” But Trump’s Justice Department is also reportedly preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Pichai’s company.
“We’re going to be watching the hearings today very closely,” Trump said Wednesday. “But there's no question that what the big tech companies are doing is very bad.”
Cicilline has been investigating the tech industry for more than a year and is preparing a report on possible anti-competitive practices. That report could later serve as the basis for legislation.
Cicilline’s report will “likely call for Congress to change antitrust laws to make it easier to sue dominant tech companies,” Paul Gallant, an analyst with the investment bank Cowen, said in a note to clients this week. “If Democrats sweep in November, that bill has a reasonable chance of enactment” in late 2021, he said.
The nation’s major antitrust laws, including the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, were all written more than a century ago. The Sherman Act, which led to a wave of trustbusting, was the first major U.S. law to restrict monopolies.
Apple’s Cook told lawmakers that their scrutiny of the industry was reasonable and appropriate, but like the other executives, he said, “We make no concession on the facts.” He said Apple had acted lawfully.
Zuckerberg said the tech industry is an “American success story.”
Republican lawmakers on the subcommittee said they were concerned about tech companies censoring conservatives, although in many cases conservative media flourishes on those services.
“Conservatives are consumers, too, and they need the protection of the antitrust laws,” said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.
The four executives are testifying virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, and some lawmakers are also appearing virtually. Of the four, Bezos is the only one who has never testified previously before a congressional panel.
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July 30, 2020 at 12:11AM
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