President-elect Trump's decision to nominate former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) as attorney general signals a difficult path ahead for big tech companies in his second administration.
Gaetz has been a fierce critic of Big Tech throughout his time in Congress, praising the Biden administration's efforts to work with Democrats to rein in the industry's power.
Gates faces serious questions about his ability to verify his identity, but experts predict his time at the Justice Department will result in another four years of intense scrutiny of the tech giant.
“If I were Big Tech, I would be very concerned about his record on antitrust enforcement and his general views on Big Tech and large corporations,” said managing director of antitrust law firm Cinder Canter Lerner.・Partner Kelly Lerner said.
“He takes a Republican-like stance against big government and translates that into an aversion to big business, especially big tech,” she noted.
President Trump announced his pick for the top position at the Justice Department last Wednesday, a decision that was met with surprise on Capitol Hill.
Gates was previously investigated by the Justice Department as part of a sex trafficking investigation and faced a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use.
The Florida Republican resigned just hours after receiving the attorney general's consent, and the ethics investigation was halted prematurely. The committee was originally scheduled to vote Friday on whether to release a report on Gaetz, but later canceled the meeting.
Mr. Gates' nomination also raises concerns about Mr. Trump's plans for the Justice Department, which is seen as a key vehicle for carrying out the president-elect's promised retaliation against his enemies.
Gaetz may be a sharp departure from the typical attorney general, but his views on the power of Big Tech are surprisingly consistent with progressives and the Biden administration.
As head of the Justice Department, Gates will oversee half of the Trump administration's antitrust enforcement, which is split between the Justice Department's antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission.
FTC Chair Lina Khan and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Canter have led the Biden administration's aggressive antitrust push against companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google's parent company Alphabet.
This effort has made the pair, and Mr. Khan in particular, unpopular with the business community.
But they also draw from an outlier circle that includes so-called “Khan conservatives,” Republicans like Mr. Gates who have voiced support for Mr. Khan and Mr. Cantor's strong approach to antitrust enforcement. It is gaining support.
“Mr. Assistant Attorney General, I think you're doing a good job, but you have to acknowledge this about the people who work in the Department of Justice who I believe are victims of political capture. It’s tough,” he told Cantor during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year.
“But I'm probably equally concerned about Google's monopoly power,” he added at the time.
Kantor is overseeing two Justice Department lawsuits against Google, one filed in 2020 under the first Trump administration and the other in 2023 under the Biden administration.
The agency won an important victory in August when a federal judge ruled that Google maintains an illegal monopoly over online search.
As the case moves into the relief phase, the Justice Department has revealed it is considering asking a court to separate Google's search business from the rest of the company. supported).
“Some people *sue* Big Tech. I say break up Big Tech!” Gates wrote in a July 2021 post about X.
Gaetz's comments come as the House of Representatives attempts to pass an antitrust overhaul bill that would make it easier to break up large companies and more difficult to integrate them.
Florida Republicans were key supporters of the push, along with then-Rep. David Cicilline (DR.I.) and Ken Buck (R. Colorado).
He has also praised Mr. Khan, telling the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, “Whoever is the next FTC chairman, I'm sure he will continue to file many of the lawsuits that Chairman Khan has brought against predatory companies.'' I hope it will continue.”
Under Khan, the FTC charged Amazon with anticompetitive practices to maintain its monopoly in online retail. The agency is also suing to block acquisitions by a number of companies, including tech giants like Meta and Microsoft.
“[Gaetz] “We have been very supportive of the Biden administration's efforts to strengthen antitrust enforcement,” Lerner said. “He is very complementary to Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan, and his comments reflect a real antipathy toward Big Tech.”
“If confirmed, I think there could be a reckoning.” [tech] industry,” she added.
His support for efforts to rein in corporate power extends beyond antitrust and Big Tech. Gaetz filed a court brief in June supporting the FTC's ban on noncompete agreements, but many in his own party opposed it.
He has previously broken with Republican lawmakers over corporate issues such as forced arbitration and stock buybacks.
“As a congressman, he was very populist on the economy,” said Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit that supports aggressive antitrust enforcement.
He continued: “He's been very aggressive, not just against Big Tech, but against antitrust and corporate power. He's a populist, that's right. He's not a pseudo-populist.”
But it remains to be seen how Gaetz will approach antitrust law if confirmed as attorney general.
“If history is prologue, there could be some disconnect between how the appointees and the Cabinet want to operate and what President Trump ultimately decides to support. “It's highly sexual,” Lerner said.
“There's a sense of tension,” she added. “Because Mr. Gates is seriously against big business. But if you look at the stock market reaction after President Trump was elected, it's because he supports big business overall. is.”
Markets soared after Trump's victory on hopes of a more business-friendly environment under the next president, who promised deregulation and tax cuts.
“Trump's problem and opportunity is that he has a large voting base of working-class Americans, and he has to work for them,” Stoller said. .
“I think his goal is to not only serve them, but also serve Wall Street,” he added. “Can you do that or do you have to choose?'' I think he doesn't want to choose, but he'll have to choose and then we'll get serious. ”
