(Bloomberg) – Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia University and an outspoken advocate of aggressive antitrust enforcement against U.S. tech giants, is joining a White House adviser, signaling that the Biden government is gearing up to face the biggest companies in the sector.
Wu will join the National Economic Council as a special assistant in technology and competition policy, the White House said on Friday.
Wu’s appointment elevates a senior antitrust expert, favored by progressives, to a senior management position, who has attacked the power of dominant technology companies like Google and Facebook Inc. of Alphabet Inc. Both companies have been sued by authorities US antitrust last year for allegedly abusing its monopoly power.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wu would help advance Biden’s agenda of addressing the “economic and social challenges” imposed by technology platforms, combating monopoly power and expanding access to broadband service for rural and low-income communities.
“The president made it clear in the campaign, probably more recently, that he faces abuse of power and that includes the abuse of power by big tech companies and their executives,” she said.
After the Federal Trade Commission and state attorney generals sued Facebook in December, Wu wrote a column in the New York Times comparing Facebook’s strategy of buying competitors to Standard Oil’s tactics in the 19th century.
“What the federal government and the states are doing is reaffirming a fundamental rule for all American companies: you can’t just buy your way out of the competition,” wrote Wu. “Facebook, led by its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, took this strategy to a blunt and blatant extreme, acquiring several companies to quell the competitive threat they represent.”
Wu joins the Biden government while tech giants are battling a Washington reckoning that could transform the industry. The Facebook lawsuit could lead to the company’s dissolution, while the Justice Department’s complaint against Google targets the core of its business – Internet search. Antitrust authorities have also opened investigations of Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
At Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation that could impose new restrictions on the way companies operate and make it more difficult for companies to continue their wave of acquisitions. Republicans and Democrats also want to change the law that protects technology platforms from lawsuits over what users post online and which is at the center of a debate over content moderation and freedom of expression.
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In addition to technology, many competition policy experts are calling for a broad rethink of how antitrust authorities police police mergers and the conduct of dominant companies across the economy. They point to evidence that increased concentration in all sectors is contributing to broader economic problems, such as reduced innovation and stagnant wages for workers.
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel and is promoting a legislative review of competition laws, praised Wu’s hiring.
“America has a big monopoly problem that needs to be resolved urgently,” she said. Wu’s appointment makes it “clear that this government is serious about promoting competition in the United States”.
The tech industry has criticized the move. Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for NetChoice, which represents Facebook, Amazon, Google and other companies, said that creating an antitrust stance in a political position like the White House is “a recipe for turning antitrust law into a weapon for political ends “. I’m afraid he won’t look for evidence, but start with a conclusion and try to prove it, ”said Szabo about Wu. “I am also concerned that he has a fundamental opinion that success should not be allowed.”
Wu argued in his book, “The Curse of the Bigness: Antitrust in the New Golden Age,” that the growing concentration on the economy has led to the concentration of wealth and power, as well as the radicalized policy that threatens American democracy. Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality,” previously served as a senior law enforcement attorney for the New York attorney general and as a senior advisor to the Federal Trade Commission.
Hiring Wu still leaves important antitrust positions vacant. Biden has not yet appointed a head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division or a permanent president for the FTC. Progressives are pressing the government to nominate candidates without ties to the technology industry. They say that a revolving door between antitrust agencies and lawyers who represented technology companies has led to lax enforcement.
The American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly group that has joined other organizations to ask Biden to reject candidates with ties to Silicon Valley, applauded Wu’s nomination and called for similar choices for other positions. Sarah Miller, the group’s executive director, attributed to Wu the revival of the idea that antitrust and competition policy is a tool to “decentralize corporate power for the benefit of workers”.
“The Biden administration has a unique opportunity in a generation to turn that idea into action – and Tim, hopefully in conjunction with additional appointments that bring similar intellect and vision to this job, is an excellent choice to lead the way,” said Miller.
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