Tech antitrust is about to get really weird

Today we’re talking about antitrust policy and tech, which is at a particularly weird moment as we enter the second Trump administration. A lot of tech policy is at a weird moment, actually, but antitrust might be the weirdest of them all — the pendulum has swung back and forth on antitrust policy pretty wildly over the past few years, and it’s about to swing again under Trump. So I asked Leah Nylen, an antitrust reporter for Bloomberg News and a leading expert on this subject, to come on the show and help break it all down. Links: Trump’s antitrust trio heralds Big Tech crackdown to continue | Bloomberg Trump picks FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency | Politico Trump picks Gail Slater to head Justice Department's antitrust division | Reuters Trump names Brendan Carr as his FCC leader | The Verge Trump’s FTC pick promises to go after ‘censorship’ from tech companies | The Verge Breaking down the DOJ’s plan to end Google’s search monopoly | The Verge US v. Google redux: all the news from the ad tech trial | The Verge Tech leaders kiss the ring | The Verge DOJ antitrust chief is ‘overjoyed’ after Google monopoly verdict | Decoder This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry | Command Line Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices