CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are preparing to argue that their companies do not stifle competition at a congressional hearing on Wednesday

The tech C.E.O.s will appear together at a congressional hearing on Wednesday to argue that their companies do not stifle competition.

New York Times 2020-07-28

Context & Ripple Effects

This is the second time in roughly a year these four companies have been summoned on antitrust grounds: executives already fought market-dominance criticism at a July 2019 House hearing, and this week escalates that to the CEOs themselves — Bezos, Cook, Zuckerberg, and Pichai appearing together for the first time.

The path here was contentious. After [[a:954665|leaked letters demanded by mid-June that each company confirm whether its chief would attend]], the hearing slipped twice before being rescheduled for Wednesday. What changed since 2019 is the posture: per the related coverage, the CEOs will argue their businesses are relatively small and operate in competitive environments, a direct rebuttal to the framing of the committee's year-long probe.

First-order effects

Bezos, Cook, Zuckerberg, and Pichai each face live questioning under oath, forcing all four to put a single coordinated defense on the record — that scale coexists with competition rather than stifling it.
The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee gains sworn testimony from all four chiefs at once, giving its investigators a common evidentiary baseline across Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google instead of piecemeal staff-level sessions.

Second-order effects

A unified 'we are small and competitive' message invites the committee to test it against specific conduct cases — app-store terms, acquisitions, self-preferencing — sharpening which practices end up cited in the panel's eventual report.
Rivals and dependent businesses watching the session get a rare public accounting of how each platform justifies its gatekeeping, material they can cite in their own complaints or negotiations with Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Third-order effects

If the CEOs' competitive-markets argument fails to land with lawmakers, the likely structural endpoint is legislation or regulatory proposals targeting platform power directly, moving antitrust enforcement beyond case-by-case court action.
Either way, the hearing normalizes CEO-level congressional scrutiny of Big Tech as a recurring obligation, raising the political cost of future acquisitions and platform-policy changes for all four companies.

The trend: Congressional antitrust scrutiny of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google is escalating from staff-level inquiries to sitting CEOs defending platform power on the record, with the committee's report poised to shape whatever regulation follows.

Discussion

@repmattgaetz Rep. Matt Gaetz on x
#BREAKING: I've filed a criminal referral against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for making materially false statements to Congress while under oath. https://gaetz.house.gov/...
@zephyrteachout Zephyr Teachout on x
“It is set to be a bizarre spectacle, with four men who run companies worth a total of around $4.85 trillion — and who include two of the world's richest individuals — primed to argue that their businesses are not really that powerful after all.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@venkatananth Venkat Ananth on x
“It has the feeling of tech's Big Tobacco moment” - On tomorrow's congressional hearing ft. Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@halsinger Hal Singer on x
Oh, if I had a dollar every time a defendant justified its conduct as being procompetitive by pointing to the (mimicking) conduct of its smaller rivals, as if their conduct doesn't establish the best outside option in the market. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/..…
@pamelageller @pamelageller on x
Excellent! but what about @Google CEO Sundar Pichai and @jack Dorsey CEO of Twitter? They lied to Congress too. They are just as guilty of Conservative bias. Actually @Google is worse. https://twitter.com/...
@ericnewcomer Eric Newcomer on x
a sign that the antitrust hearing won't just be about antitrust. Gaetz sits on the House antitrust subcommittee https://twitter.com/...
@madhavchanchani Madhav Chanchani on x
Facebook, Apple, Google/Alphabet and Amazon combined annual revenues of $773 billion at last count adds up to roughly the GDP of Saudi Arabia $420 billion: the combined total cash pile of the four firms https://www.axios.com/...
@patrickmcgee_ Patrick McGee on x
All 4 Big Tech companies facing antitrust questions this week are larger, in market cap, than Microsoft's peak in 1999 ($619bn). Apple $1.63tn Facebook $640bn Amazon $1.52tn Goog $1.04tn
@axios @axios on x
4 stats to know before Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon CEOs testify on Wednesday: •~$5 tril: (rough) combined market cap •$773 bil: combined annual revenue •$420 bil: combined total cash pile •4.6 bil: People connected to the internet on Earth https://www.axios.com/...
@johnpaczkowski John Paczkowski on x
nice to see “embrace-extend-extinguish” getting a 2020 remake https://twitter.com/...
@iansherr Ian Sherr on x
News flash: Congress doesn't understand how to read tech press stories after product events where we identify possible copy-acquire-kill in real time. Congress also isn't able to read some of the amazing tech reporter books that have come out in the past year alone. https://twitt…
@pramilajayapal Pramila Jayapal on x
For far too long, tech companies have operated with little to no regulation or accountability, playing fast and loose with people's personal information. That must end—now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@quinnypig HydroxyCoreyQuinn on x
My biggest question for these four CEOs in the congressional hot seat: How the heck are we supposed to play f*ck-marry-kill with four people? https://twitter.com/...
@ldignan Larry Dignan on x
Here come the House antitrust hearings and rockstar tech CEOs showing up in DC. Does anyone expect insights, real questions from legislators and anything more than a show hearing out of this? More likely: Zingers from pols trying to look good at home. https://www.techmeme.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Smart. “But that meteoric growth has come at times with immense costs: The data they collect puts users' privacy at risk, the services they offer can harm the very workers they employ, and the content they permit online carries the potential to destabilize democracy.” https://twi…
@demandprogress @demandprogress on x
The Big Tech CEOs have amassed wealth and power by exploiting workers, conducting surveillance on users and competitors, enabling the spread of misinformation, and more. They are finally being forced to answer for it. #BreakThemUp https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@pixelatedboat @pixelatedboat on x
Seems inefficient to split the money between all these groups. Instead they should've given $22 million to the biggest anti-monopoly group, enabling it to drive its competitors out of the anti-monopoly market https://twitter.com/...
@brucebartlett Bruce Bartlett on x
From what I know about Chris Hughes, he will withdraw funding once his groups starts to have some impact. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Vox Jason Del Rey on x
Congress will finally grill Jeff Bezos. It's about time.
@davelevinthal Dave Levinthal on x
“He's appeared in a Star Trek movie, built a $42 million, 10,000-year clock in the desert, and survived a helicopter crash. But on Wednesday, Jeff Bezos will do something he's never done before: testify before Congress.” — via ⁦@averyhartmans⁩ https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
@voxdotcom @voxdotcom on x
Jeff Bezos said in 2018 that Amazon needs “to conduct ourselves in such a way that when we are scrutinized, we pass with flying colors.” On Wednesday, Bezos will need to do just that when he testifies in front of US Congress for the first time. https://www.vox.com/...
@dmccabe David McCabe on x
I'm not sure I would have believed you if you had told me in February that one of my last Capitol Hill hallway interviews for a long while would be asking Mitt Romney, who knows from mansions, about Jeff Bezos' renovated home. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@kyweise Karen Weise on x
NEW: Jeff Bezos wanted to be seen as a statesman in DC, a leader floating way above the fray. Congress is dragging him down where he didn't want to be: Amazon's DC defender. w/ @dmccabe https://www.nytimes.com/...
@nytimesbusiness @nytimesbusiness on x
While Jeff Bezos' presence in Washington grew, so did Amazon's, as it began pouring money into the traditional modes of influencing policymakers https://www.nytimes.com/...
@wsjbusiness @wsjbusiness on x
Jeff Bezos's message that https://amazon.com/ uses its scale for good is set to be tested as never before when he makes his first-ever appearance before Congress on Wednesday https://www.wsj.com/...
@hshaban Hamza Shaban on x
“Bezos' wealth has grown by more than $50 billion in recent months, just as unemployment has skyrocketed during the pandemic, making him an avatar for inequality. Questions about Amazon's dominance have also grown louder” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@fightfortheftr @fightfortheftr on x
Tell Congress to hold Jeff Bezos's feet to the fire at the Congressional hearing on anti-trust practices. While they're at it, they should move to #InvestigateAmazon. Take action >>> https://actionnetwork.org/...
@dmccabe David McCabe on x
New: Jeff Bezos wanted to be a statesman in DC — the savior of a venerable newspaper who hosted the nation's political elite. He did not want to deal with the grind of glad-handing policymakers for Amazon. But Congress had other ideas. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@hypervisible Doomscrolling Eternal on x
“ He [Bezos] can argue that you don't want to enforce too many rules on an open market because you will end up hurting the consumer.” 🙄 https://www.wsj.com/...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x
Zuckerberg's strategy for the big tech congressional hearing: To portray Facebook as an American success story, now threatened by the rise of Chinese apps and tech around the world. (To make the point that weakening FB = strengthening China) https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@profcarroll @profcarroll on x
Zuck's recycled “But China!” argument falls flat on its face when you realize that ByteDance is under tremendous pressure to sell off TikTok US. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@benthompson Ben Thompson on x
Journalists equivocating between Facebook and China — or even favoring the latter — is not going to age well. And this isn't a defense of Facebook.
@aprilaser April Glaser on x
remembering Facebook's previous posture towards China and that if FB was actually concerned about China's illiberal business requirements, Zuckerberg would probably be advocating for human rights (but that would include protecting privacy) https://slate.com/... https://twitter.co…
@moonalice Roger McNamee on x
Argument that we cannot regulate Google or FB because we need them to compete with China is nonsense. G, FB are smaller versions of China. US strengths are democracy, entrepreneurship. To compete w/ China, US should favor competition & diversity, not monopoly. https://twitter.com…
@pingroma Zheping Huang on x
This is the same guy who jogged in Beijing's smog and recommended Xi Jinping's book not so long ago https://qz.com/1115960 https://twitter.com/...
@sarafischer Sara Fischer on x
🚨 Scoop: Facebook boycotters lobbying lawmakers on advertising antitrust ahead of Wednesday's hearing - #StopHateforProfit demanding regulatory changes, which could include Facebook being forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp https://www.axios.com/...
@justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x
Remember, photos of his notes at past Congressional testimony showed he was ready to make these arguments in past. Basically, Mark Zuckerberg wants you to believe what's good for Facebook is good for 'Merica. Let him keep breaking laws and making money till he can perfect the AI.…
@benthompson Ben Thompson on x
It's one thing to be resolutely opposed to US tech companies. I think you're probably missing some of the benefits in the cost/benefit tradeoff, but that's fine. To take up arms in favor of Chinese tech giants though, I just don't get it. They are all your professed fears x1000
@joshsternberg Josh Sternberg on x
When all else fails, wrap yourself in the flag, I guess. https://twitter.com/...
@shiraovide Shira Ovide on x
This is a pure political tactic. Putting sensible guardrails on companies that operate in the U.S. does not undermine American innovation nor does it strengthen China companies. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@justinbrookman Justin Brookman on x
This is pretty standard from FB at this point: we can't have strong privacy protections, we can't regulate bias in AI, leave cryptocurrency alone — otherwise, China will kick our ass. https://twitter.com/...
@f_kaltheuner Frederike Kaltheuner on x
He has made this point in every single previous hearing. If he was really worried about data collection by Chinese apps, he would push for a comprehensive federal privacy law. Much of the data that TikTok collects is all data you can legally buy from data brokers in the US https:…
@benthompson Ben Thompson on x
One of the most difficult things about this job is waking up the next morning worried you got yesterday's article wrong. I don't have that problem when it comes to being resolutely opposed to the CCP. Worth thinking about for those so blasé.
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Lol. And the argument Instagram was only successful because of Facebook ownership doesn't help the antitrust case. Especially when you really understand the German Federal Cartel office decision v Facebook Inc. https://twitter.com/...
@rmac18 @rmac18 on x
Sounds like a good plan for a CEO who offered Xi Jinping the right to name his kid and took photographs jogging thru Tiananmen Square https://twitter.com/...
@hypervisible Doomscrolling Eternal on x
ICYMI. “Mark Zuckerberg is prepared with what he sees as a compelling argument for lawmakers ready to grill him on antitrust issues: hindering American technological innovation only helps China.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@frankpasquale Frank Pasquale on x
An unsurprisingly disingenuous strategy. The real divide is between oligarchs (in both politics & business, in both the US & China) who increase their power via monopolization, & a general population increasingly beleaguered by predatory tech & authoritarian governance. https://t…
@mathewi Mathew Ingram on x
Great point — FB even offered the Chinese government a tool that would allow them to censor any content they disapproved of on the network as part of an attempt to get access to the country https://twitter.com/...
@mattzeitlin Matthew Zeitlin on x
this is a strategy borrowed from the big banks, who have argued that restrictions on their size/activities will just lead to european and chinese banks taking market share https://twitter.com/...
@mathewi Mathew Ingram on x
So it's better to have an American company invading people's privacy for financial gain and distributing hate and disinformation than to have a Chinese one doing it. Got it https://twitter.com/...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x
Btw, the Facebook versus China argument, which Zuckerberg also used in the Libra congressional hearing and in his Georgetown speech, comes after years of Zuckerberg wooing Chinese leaders to try to get into the country and failing.
@hshaban Hamza Shaban on x
Facebook's “China, bad. Facebook, good” strategy relies on the dynamic that Facebook doesn't have any real competitors in the US, even though Facebook uses apps like TikTok to say that it isn't a monopoly. https://twitter.com/...
@willoremus Will Oremus on x
I argued last week that any U.S. action against TikTok should come with regulation of Facebook and other American social platforms. https://onezero.medium.com/... Wonder if Zuck would still be so enthusiastic about cracking down on TikTok then... https://twitter.com/...
@next_china Bloomberg Next China on x
Mark Zuckerberg will make the argument to lawmakers this week that when it comes to antitrust issues, hindering American innovation only helps China https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x
he's also likely to try and counter the idea that buying Instagram and WhatsApp was anticompetitive by talking about how their success was not inevitable (pointing out that Insta had 13 employees and no business model, for instance.)

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