Trump Keeps Attacking Silicon Valley's Giants In Court — And They Keep Dodging

President Donald Trump’s antitrust enforcers have repeatedly tried to break up tech giants, even after their CEOs bent the knee to him. But the courts keep saying no.

Wednesday’s decision by a federal judge not to splinter Google’s online advertising business is perhaps the largest setback for the Trump administration to date as it attempts to restructure Silicon Valley’s most powerful tech companies, building on efforts regulators jump-started during his first term in 2019. It also highlights the trouble the administration faces going into next year with antitrust trials scheduled for Apple and Amazon.

Wednesday’s loss thwarted the Justice Department’s best chance to force a breakup that could overhaul a Silicon Valley giant, according to former antitrust officials and competition scholars who spoke with POLITICO. Antitrust enforcers will have an even harder time convincing a judge to break up Apple or Amazon, they said.

The dimming chances of a major tech breakup could also bear on Trump’s close yet fraught relationship with Silicon Valley. Big tech CEOs have made multiple efforts to curry favor with the administration, contributing funds for Trump’s second inauguration and his ballroom project, and frequently visiting the White House. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally lobbied the president last year to have the Federal Trade Commission settle a case regarding his company’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, The New York Times reported. (The FTC is appealing after losing that trial in November.)

But despite Trump’s growing ties to the tech elite, and his oft-stated determination to see U.S. companies dominate technology worldwide, he hasn’t shielded them from all antitrust enforcement.

“Donald Trump, and especially his White House team, definitely view antitrust as just a bargaining chip to go after companies that he doesn't like,” said Reed Showalter, a former DOJ attorney adviser for competition policy. “But as of right now, Big Tech has been more than willing to do what Trump wants, and so I don't know if there's much need for leverage.”

Before Wednesday’s decision on Google’s online advertising business, D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta refused to force Google to spin off its popular Chrome browser and Android phone business last September. Another judge rejected accusations last year that Meta had illegally monopolized social media.

“This really takes a lot of wind out of the sails of the anti-monopoly movement, and the likelihood that there will be breakups in the future,” said Vanderbilt law professor and leading antitrust scholar Rebecca Haw Allensworth. “This was the strongest case for divestiture, so it doesn’t look good for a structural remedy in the other cases.”

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema did approve “most of the parties’ proposed behavioral remedies” in her Wednesday order, but the details are in an opinion that will remain sealed until it’s reviewed for redactions.

The DOJ put a positive spin on the decision. “The Antitrust Division is pleased that the court ordered substantial relief in the Google Ad Tech case,” a department spokesperson said in a statement, adding that “we are one step closer to restoring competition and bringing relief for the American people in online advertising markets.”

Google also applauded the outcome.

“We’re very pleased the Court rejected the DOJ’s proposal to break apart tools that help small businesses reach new customers and grow,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, in a statement.

Brinkema ruled last year that Google had broken antitrust laws by tying its ad exchange, called AdX, to its ad sales manager, which kept publishers dependent on the company’s services. The only thing left for her to decide Wednesday was whether to break up the company or adopt less drastic remedies, which could include requiring Google to offer rivals equal access to certain AdX features.

The argument for a breakup was the strongest in this case, Allensworth said, in part because it would be more feasible to carry out than in the other major tech antitrust cases during Trump’s second term.

“The ad exchange is a sort of discreet product as opposed to other things that Google does,” she said. “You could cleave it off more cleanly.”

Yet even given the relative strength of the ad case, courts have traditionally been wary of forcing Silicon Valley divestitures. AT&T was perhaps the last major tech company to be broken up by a court in 1982. And the federal government ultimately failed to break up Microsoft in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“Structural remedies just are not something that courts are very willing to do, especially in these complicated markets where they're so intertwined,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law & Economics. “The more technocratic behavioral remedies … are where we expect these cases to go if the government wins.”

The government’s two failed bids for structural changes at Google may set an informal precedent at trial when the government contends that Apple has an illegal monopoly over phones, and accuses Amazon of abusing its position as the top online retailer to overcharge third-party sellers and block competitors from having lower prices.

“The judges in those other cases are now going to read these two opinions by really capable and highly respected federal judges — Judge Mehta and Judge Brinkema — who have thought about these issues very carefully and came to the conclusion that a breakup wasn't sensible,” former FTC Chair William Kovacic said. “Those opinions will be influential.”