Between Donald Trump and La Big Tech, a half-hoping half-complice-Liberation relationship
Their faces of communicants trapped at the inauguration ceremony of the new presidenton January 20, said a lot about their hopes and concerns at the edge of the new Trump era. Tim Cook, boss of Apple, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, Elon Musk and his enemy of Open Ai Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg, Leaders of Google and Meta, had each contributed to a small million dollars with the festivities, in the confused waiting of a favor of the great ghost of Washington. All were even present again, as a nice sponsors, at the first Easter celebration guaranteed « without money of the taxpayer » organized on Sunday in the White House. Pain lost.
If Apple always fears to take the customs duties on the full force On its iPhone produced in China, Google did not escape last week to the second verdict of a federal court confirming its illegal monopoly on online advertising and search engines. The colossus is now risking a dismemberment required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the antitrust arm of the American government. Mark Zuckerberg, he has been testifying since Monday in another courtroom of the same court, accused of having bought his Instagram and Whatsapp subsidiaries for the sole purpose of stifling dangerous competitors for his flagship vessel.
In absolute terms, these two flagship trials should not surprise. Entered in 2020 during the first Trump presidency, the appeals against the « Big Tech » were even maintained and abundant by the Biden administration, which added the complaint for advertising monopoly against Google while attacking Amazon and Apple for their possible anti -competitive practices. But all the same … While the new regime multiplies the purges of the control authorities, flouts the Constitution and studies customs exemptions for the companies that supported it during the campaign, this angelic respect for the rule of law and anti-monopole laws contrasts with the frenzy of dereglementations and especially with the usual « transactional » customs of the Donald Trump godfather.
Sundar Pichai, like the others, went to allegiance in the fall in Mar-A-Lago. If Google’s boss has remained discreet, his search engine immediately replaced Gulf of Mexico by Gulf of America on Google Maps, stifled its hiring policies promoting racial diversity, sweet of the calendar the references to the march of pride and the Black History Month. He also kept on his phones, like Apple, the Tiktok app, protected by Donald Trump despite the risk of banishment for his links with China.
Zuckerberg, he threatened for a time in prison by the president for having allegedly supported Biden by his donations to civic organizations in 2020, did not skimp to redeem himself. The pattern of Meta, after multiple trips to Florida, compensated Trump of 25 million dollars to apologize for having banned him from Facebook after the insurrection of January 2021, abolished the policies of diversity on hiring, reduces his teams of moderators and even marked his cultural reconversion by advocating « More male energy » In a world too woke, in a podcast favorable to Trump. The founder of Meta was so sure to escape the antitrust trial he had proposed in March to the government to close the case against a tiny fine of $ 450 million; A proposal deemed « delusionalBy the FTC.
Donald Trump, as a rolled populist, has no political interest in showing his indulgence too quickly towards the castles of the Silicon Valley hated by his voters with a red cap. Above all, the author of The Art of the Dealself -proclaimed champion of muscular negotiations, prefers to wait for the verdict of the courts in the two trials to then extort the total allegiance of these « new media»To his presidency.
Trump already holds all the levers after destroying any pretension to the independence of the FTC, managed since February by Andrew Ferguson, a lawyer for the republican causes committed for years against the supposed censorship of conservative votes on social networks, likely, as the very loyal antitrust division of the Department of Justice, to soften the application of sorrows, dismemberments decided by judges.
The White House has another asset: customs duties of 25 % of which it threatens the European Union. In the eyes of Americans, the hope of a favor by Trump clearly explains the leniency of the Commission towards Apple and Meta, affected by a small fine 700 million euros for their anti -competitive practices. « »In view of the laws, the penalties could have represented 10 % of their turnover but are limited to 0.15 % of their sales for 2024notes Bloomberg Intelligence Tamlin Bason’s analyst. They reflect caution in a climate of tension between the United States and Europe.And, for those who doubt it in the United States, the weight of a promise of protection by the godfather Donald Trump.
