Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios
The strange bedfellows making up the coalition pushing for antitrust action against Big Tech were on full display Wednesday in Washington.
Why it matters: There's plenty of momentum right now for the people on both sides of the aisle who want to bring down incumbent tech firms.
- Big Tech has a reason to be spooked that so many D.C. players want to cause them trouble, and the antitrust cases at the DOJ and FTC and claims of censorship are keeping them busy.
Yes, but: There are still drastic differences in tactics, end goals, and reasons for Big Tech grievances, as exemplified by the diverse lineup of speakers at Y Combinator's "Little Tech" summit this week.
- Eye-popping duos (like former FTC chair Lina Khan and Steve Bannon, photographed smiling together after Bannon appeared on stage with former CFPB director Rohit Chopra) happily tout a bipartisan interest in attacking corporate power.
Between the lines: Those are real problems for Big Tech, and they're putting them on the defense in Washington. But big fissures could derail a growing bipartisan pro-antitrust coalition.
At the core of the right-left partnership are some key tensions: President Trump is easily swayed by campaign donations, in-office visits, and flattery, plus a desire to fight back against what he views of discrimination of U.S. companies abroad through European policy.
- Republicans are also generally skeptical of new antitrust legislation (with some exceptions), a key goal of pro-antitrust Democrats.
- Democrats argue that Trump's moves to slash the federal bureaucracy and claim more executive power, including the recent firing of the two Democratic FTC commissioners, could weaken enforcement goals or leave agency heads more vulnerable to industry capture.
What they're saying: "I do think [the firings] get to this deep issue, which is, if you want to govern in ways that check the power of Big Tech or other monopolists, you need a government," Khan told reporters at the Y Combinator event.
- "If you're simultaneously trying to take apart the government or the administrative state, there's a real tension between that project and wanting to take on monopolies," she said.
Asked if the MAGA crowd is actually beholden to Big Tech despite its negative rhetoric, Bannon said being aligned with Silicon Valley technocrats like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel goes against everything populism stands for.
- "They want us to be subservient to their interest in techno feudalism, and we're not going to do that."
What we're watching: It's too early to tell just how tough Trump's picks for key antitrust posts at the DOJ and FTC will be for future cases, but big cases against Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta are pushing forward under their watch.
- Bannon argued that "personnel is policy" and Trump's appointment of Gail Slater as DOJ antitrust chief and Andrew Ferguson as FTC chair show the president is serious about reining in Big Tech power.
The bottom line: Democrats like Khan and Chopra are happy to welcome all voices to their side. But they acknowledge keeping the coalition strong won't be easy.
- "It's easy to talk about how you want to be tough with monopolies, but when push comes to shove in this job, are you actually going to take action?" Khan said.
