The US government had the nation's biggest tech giants in its sights for a long time, and in 2024, it hit a bull's eye.
The big victory in August when the Justice Department convinced a federal district court judge that Google (GOOG, GOOGLE) abused its search engine dominance and violated antitrust law.
“Google is a monopolist, and has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the judge wrote in his judgment.
It was the government's most sweeping antitrust victory against any major company since prosecutors went after AT&T in the 1980s and Microsoft in the 1990s.
Prosecutors then asked the same judge to force parent Google Alphabet to sell parts of its empire, a dramatic request that will play out in a separate phase of the case in 2025. The end result could be disintegrating Silicon Valley's great empire accumulated over two decades.
What happened in 2024 could have future implications for some of the other big names in the tech world.
apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) are all defending themselves against a series of other federal and state antitrust suits, some of which make similar claims.
For now, Wall Street doesn't seem tired. The so-called Magnificent Seven stocks of the world's largest technology companies helped push the market higher in 2024, thanks in part to advances in artificial intelligence.
They include Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), and the Alphabet. The Alphabet has, in fact, reached an all-time high this month.
Some legal experts argue that the government's antitrust ruling in 2024 is still too premature to seriously shake up the giant tech companies.
“The Biden administration has moved antitrust down the field in some ways,” said the University of Tennessee law professor Maurice Stucke. “But are we in the end zone? No.”
The cases that allege that companies have acted illegally to maintain a monopoly take years to work their way through the justice system. The more immediate dangers for tech giants, Stucke said, is the chance that the government will try to block new offerings. unite or that their businesses could be overtaken by AI startups.
“That sends them more chill than any regulator,” Stucke said. “They don't want to be next Intel.”
Amy Bos, director of state and federal affairs for technology sector advocate NetChoice (which also represents Yahoo Finance), agreed that the challenges of government unification are the biggest looming threats.
“It shows in the boardrooms,” he said. “I think there is more hesitation from companies that should merge, if they want to grow their business, because they may come under more scrutiny.”
Could that change once President-elect Donald Trump takes office?
There is uncertainty about that question. Trump, after all, has made it clear that he has no intention of going easy on the nation's tech giants once he's back in the Oval Office.
“Big Tech has been wild for years,” Trump said in a statement after nominating Gail Slater, an aide to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division.
The industry, he added, is “stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to undermine the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech!”
“I was proud to fight this abuse in my First Term, and our Justice Department's antitrust team will continue that work under Gail's leadership,” he added.
The first Trump administration initially sued Google over antitrust concerns, which led to a ruling by a district court judge in August that the tech giant illegally monopolized the search engine market.
It was also during the first Trump administration that the Federal Trade Commission tried to do unwind Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in a case set for trial in April.
The first Trump administration also launched an antitrust investigation into Apple (APPL), leading the Biden administration to sue the iPhone maker earlier this year.
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks with Brendan Carr, his proposed choice for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, on November 19. Brandon Bell/Pool via REUTERS ·via REUTERS/Reuters
Just days before he was given that chairmanship appointment, Carr sent letters to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook predicting “wide-ranging steps to restore Americans' First Amendment rights” once Trump takes office. .
Many of these CEOs have spent time since Trump's election trying to curry favor with the president-elect, meeting him in person at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort or donating large sums to Trump's inauguration fund.
Trump has sent some mixed messages about how far he wants to go to hold tech companies accountable.
During the campaign, he was asked if he supported breaking up Google as an antidote to unhealthy competition in the search engine market. Trump suggested that Google's punishment could be met without forcing it to sell parts of its empire.
“What you can do without breaking it up is make it more fair,” Trump said in an interview on October 15. The former president described Google's search engine as “rigged” and expressed concern that results for Google could in the case favoring China.
Google CEO Pichai said of Trump “in my conversations with him, he's definitely very focused on American competitiveness, especially in technology, including AI.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, speaks during the New York Times' annual DealBook summit on December 4. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) ·Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images
Asked at the New York Times DealBook summit in New York if Trump's election changes the dynamic for Google's antitrust case, he said, “This is a DOJ case, and the case is already in court,” noting that it began under Trump's first term. .
“So I don't have any specific insight into that.” The company, he added, will “protect ourselves there.”
Stucke, the University of Tennessee law professor, predicted that antitrust enforcement will remain much more aggressive than it was under the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan.
“While antitrust may not be the same under Trump as it is under Biden, it's not going to go back to the way it was.”
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
