Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple chief executives face US lawmakers in antitrust showdown
- Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook cite competition from China to push back against efforts to rein in their companies
- Trump threatens to use executive orders against ‘Big Tech’
Google and Facebook took the sharpest jabs for alleged abuse of their market power from Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday in a much-anticipated congressional hearing that put four of America’s most prominent tech CEOs in the hot seat.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook – whose companies have a combined market value of about US$5 trillion – parried a range of accusations from lawmakers that they crippled smaller rivals in the quest for market share, via a videoconference hearing.
Though it was Bezos’ first congressional testimony, he appeared the least fazed. Cook drew fewer barbed questions than Bezos and handled them efficiently. Zuckerberg took the most damage, stumbling at times when confronted with internal emails.
In an effort to push back against efforts to rein in his company, the Facebook CEO cited China in his opening remarks, telling lawmakers the Asian superpower was building its “own version of the internet focused on very different ideas, and they are exporting their vision to other countries”.
Cook also raised the spectre of Chinese competition, pointing out that the smartphone market includes China’s Huawei Technologies, which has been a focus of considerable US national security concern.
Pichai, CEO of both Alphabet and Google, took the most heat from conservatives on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel and looked the worse for it, as he repeatedly told lawmakers he would be happy to look into various situations and get back to them.