In a rare show of bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats endorsed the initiation of antitrust proceedings against Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet, and Apple. While members of each party may have disagreed on some specifics, their high level conclusions were the same.
Each of the tech companies came out with a statement vehemently defending the way their organizations are currently structured. However, their strategies varied slightly. For example, Alphabet essentially argued that consumers rely on them too much to be broken up, saying in a statement that “Americans simply don’t want Congress to break Google’s products or harm the free services they use every day.”
Amazon, Apple, and Facebook instead focused on highlighting the competitive landscape they each face and that being large doesn’t necessarily mean being anticompetitive. It remains to be seen if any action will be taken, but it certainly highlights the influence these companies possess and that the targets on their backs are growing increasingly large as they continue to expand.