Rep. Ken Buck says the GOP does not seem to plan tougher antitrust rules on Google, Amazon, and Apple in 2023; Jim Jordan does not want to give Biden more power
- The new Republican leadership in the U.S. House doesn't appear to have the appetite to impose tougher antitrust rules on the tech giants. Tweets: @caro , @robbysoave , @carlszabo , @pathedger18 , @schwartzbcnbc , @mrddmia , and @jonschweppe Tweets: Caroline Mccarthy / @caro : “Tough on tech” is a great stance for getting attention but I don't think politicians from either party who've made it part of their electoral brand have much of a plan for actually addressing it. https://twitter.com/... Robby Soave / @robbysoave : Good. The Twitter Files, Facebook Files, etc. have shown that “Big Tech” is not the issue per say. The issue is the pressure campaign coming from federal agencies. That's where the GOP needs to focus. https://twitter.com/... Carl Szabo / @carlszabo : While the Biden Administration and Democrats in the Senate work to breakup America's leading businesses, House Republicans are rightly focused on how the government is abusing its power to control free speech. https://www.cnbc.com/... Patrick Hedger / @pathedger18 : Glad to see House Republicans realize that handing a bazooka to the Biden administration, and subsequent Democratic administrations, is bad idea. Progressives haven't been shy about wanting to use antitrust to reshape the economy through M&A enforcement. https://www.cnbc.com/... Brian Schwartz / @schwartzbcnbc : NEW:House GOP leaders will likely not be making Big Tech antitrust reforms a top priority this Congress.That lack of focus may give reprieve to @Google @Microsoft @Meta @amazon More new reporting w/@lauren_feiner https://www.cnbc.com/... @mrddmia : Predictable and predicted. @Jim_Jordan wants to give Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple 2 more years of antitrust amnesty. So they can become even more powerful. And crush even more competition. And shutter even more small businesses. And cancel even more conservatives.... https://twitter.com/... Jon Schweppe / @jonschweppe : The presidential primary will ultimately determine the direction of the GOP on this issue. Jim Jordan won't be able to say “no” to Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis if they decide they want Congress to pass laws allowing for more aggressive antitrust enforcement. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Buck's admission closes a three-year arc he helped start: he was the lead Republican behind the bipartisan House antitrust package in 2021, when his own caucus was split between co-sponsors of the bills and members who argued competition rules ignored alleged platform bias against conservatives.
The pivot was visible before it was official — a confidential GOP memo ahead of the 2020 hearing steered lawmakers toward 'political bias' over competition, and once the GOP took the House gavel in January the antitrust subcommittee formally shifted its agenda to free-speech issues. Buck's statement confirms the self-preferencing bill that Senate Democrats had already stalled ahead of the midterms now faces a hostile lower chamber too.
First-order effects
- Google, Amazon, and Apple get a de facto reprieve on Capitol Hill for 2023: the chamber most likely to move structural antitrust legislation is led by a party whose chairman, Jim Jordan, explicitly opposes handing Biden more regulatory power.
- Buck's own bipartisan coalition is effectively dead for the session — the bill he shepherded in 2021 no longer has a path through his party's leadership.
Second-order effects
- The platforms' Washington posture shifts from lobbying against legislation to managing investigations: with bills off the table, committee scrutiny moves to hearings and subpoenas on speech-related questions, which are cheaper to absorb than structural breakups.
- State-level regulators and EU-style enforcement inherit the vacuum — if Congress won't touch gatekeeper conduct like self-preferencing, pressure migrates to jurisdictions still willing to act.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, US antitrust action against Big Tech becomes dependent on which party holds the White House rather than on durable statute — leaving platform-gatekeeper rules to agencies (FTC under Lina Khan) and foreign regulators instead of law.
- The GOP's tech critique consolidates around censorship claims rather than market power, meaning future Republican-led inquiries target content moderation practices — a framework that survives even as the original 2021 competition bills lapse.
The trend: US tech antitrust is decoupling from legislative momentum and reorganizing around partisan control of investigative agendas, with competition policy ceding ground to speech politics.