The US Federal Trade Commission is moving ahead with a sprawling antitrust probe of Microsoft Corp. that was opened in the waning days of the Biden Administration, signaling that Donald Trump’s new FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson is going to prioritize scrutiny of tech giants.
Elon is still angry about OpenAI.
Sounds like someone thought their 1 million bribe to Trump would get them off.
It’s signaling that they didn’t pay the protection money… lots of reasons to dislike Microsoft but if that’s the case, respect.
They paid. Which means they can pay again. And pay more. Maybe all of it. It’s a shakedown.
Except they did pay, lol
How did they pay?
A million dollars for the inaugural fund for starters and Satya Nadella was there in person hobnobbing with the other billionaires.
This is the only positive thing in the Trump administration so far. I was worried that they were going to de-fang the FTC and DOJ’s antitrust efforts and just start handing out slaps on the wrist again, but nope. It seems they’re going ahead with the Biden-era aggressiveness, which is awesome.
Of course, they’ll never touch Musk’s companies, and it remains to be seen if Microsoft/Google/etc will be able to bribe Trump for a settlement. But at least it’s a glimmer of hope in the otherwise onslaught of depressing news.
This is like when you see a rapist and a pedophile engage. You’d think they’d be friends, except nope. The rapist is raping the pedophile. You don’t feel sorry for the pedophile, and you don’t cheer the rapist, but you certainly don’t feel the same empathy as if it were some else being raped. Doesn’t make the rapist a good guy though.
Welcome to what capitulating to fascism gets you.
