FTC Grills Microsoft Rivals to Bolster Antitrust Probe

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been asking several of Microsoft’s competitors about the company’s business practices as part of an ongoing antitrust probe, Bloomberg reported Friday (Feb. 13), citing unnamed sources.

The agency’s issuance of civil investigative demands steps up its investigation into whether Microsoft illegally monopolizes parts of the enterprise computing market by bundling its products and by making it harder for customers to use its products on other companies’ cloud services, according to the report.

The investigation was launched during the last days of the Biden administration and has been continued by the second Trump administration, the report said.

In the time since the probe began, Microsoft has loosened some of its policies and has said that some of its products aren’t compatible with other clouds because of differences in technologies, per the report.

The FTC did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

It was reported in November 2024 that the agency’s investigation of alleged anti-competitive practices at Microsoft would focus on claims that the tech giant illegally uses the market power of its Office 365 productivity suite to benefit its Azure cloud service.

The allegations were that the company increases subscription fees for customers who leave, charges steep exit fees and makes its Office 365 products incompatible with competitive cloud providers.

In December 2024, it was reported that Microsoft formally requested an investigation into the FTC after reports surfaced that details of an antitrust investigation into the tech giant were leaked. The company asked the agency’s inspector general to examine whether senior management at the FTC disclosed nonpublic information about the probe.

It was reported in March 2025 that the antitrust probe begun by the Biden administration would continue under the second Trump administration and that FTC staff had been gathering information for the investigation.

It was reported at that time that as part of the investigation, the FTC sent Microsoft a civil investigative demand in late 2024 demanding information about the company’s artificial intelligence operations, data centers, software licensing practices and decision to cut funding on its own AI projects after making a deal with OpenAI.