Big Tech CEOs Head To Washington July 27 To Testify In Antitrust Probe

The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet will all appear before Congress this month as part of a governmental probe into their companies, Reuters reported, citing a statement from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.

House Judiciary Panel Chair Jerrold Nadler and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline said it is “essential” that the CEOs give testimony. They’ll all be allowed to give statements virtually, Reuters said.

So that means Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Apple’s Tim Cook and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos will be appearing before the panel.

Lawmakers are expected to release a report on their antitrust investigation within a few weeks, and the outcome of that investigation is expected to come with new legislation that will reform and regulate the digital landscape.

The concern has long been that each of the four Big Tech firms have used their position to squeeze out competition and dominate the market. Cicilline told CNBC in an interview earlier this year that he believes competition is not happening enough in the U.S. tech scene and he wants to change that.

All four firms are also being looked into by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

In addition, Facebook and Amazon are staring down Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cases, while U.S. state attorneys are looking into Facebook and Google.

This would be the first time all four CEOs have testified together before Congress, although all except Bezos have done so separately in the past.

In late June, the DOJ said it was close to deciding how to proceed on its antitrust suit against Google. That suit concerns Google’s alleged abuse of its power in the advertising market. Google controls 90 percent of the market for some ad tech tools and has faced criticism for years that it favors its own products over competitors’.