(Bloomberg) – Timothy Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University and an outspoken advocate of aggressive antitrust enforcement against American technology giants, joins the White House as an adviser, indicating that the government in Biden prepared to expand the largest companies in the industry.
Wu will join the National Economic Council as a special assistant on technology and competition policy, the White House said on Friday.
Wu’s appointment is a leading antitrust expert, elected by progressives, who holds a senior position in the administration, exercising the power of dominant technology companies such as Google and Facebook Inc. from Alphabet Inc. attacked. Both companies were sued by U.S. antitrust lawmakers last year for allegedly abusing their monopolistic power.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wu would help advance Biden’s agenda to address the “economic and social challenges” facing technology platforms, tackle monopolistic power and access to low-income broadband services and expand rural communities.
“The president was probably more recently clear about the campaign that he opposes the abuse of power and that it includes the abuse of power by big technology companies and their executives,” she said.
After the Federal Trade Commission and Attorney General Facebook sued 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 states are doing is re-establishing a fundamental rule for all U.S. businesses: you can not just buy your way out of competition,” Wu wrote. “Facebook, led by its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has taken the strategy to a skater-like and serious extreme and acquired several companies to stifle the competitive threat they pose.”
Wu joins the Biden government as technology giants wrestle with a bill in Washington that could transform the industry. The Facebook case could lead to a breakdown of the company, while the Justice Department’s complaint against Google is at the heart of its business – internet search. Antitrust enforcers also investigated Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
At Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers are working on legislation that could place new restrictions on the operation of companies and make it harder for companies to continue with their acquisitions. Republicans and Democrats also want to change the law that protects technology platforms from lawsuits over what users post online and that are central to a debate on content moderation and freedom of speech.
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In addition to technology, many competition policy experts call for a broad rethinking of how antitrust enforcers merge and act by dominant enterprises across the economy. They point to evidence that increasing concentration between industries is contributing to broader economic problems such as reduced innovation and stagnant wages for workers.
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel and advocates a legislative review of competition law, praised Wu’s appointment.
“America has a big monopoly problem that needs to be addressed urgently,” she said. The appointment of Wu makes it clear that this government is serious about promoting competition in the United States.
The technology industry has criticized the move. Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of NetChoice, which represents Facebook, Amazon, Google and other companies, said the creation of an antitrust position in a political office such as the White House is a recipe for the formation of antitrust legislation for political purposes. “I’m worried he would not look for evidence, but would start with a conclusion and try to prove it,” Szabo said of Wu. “I am also concerned that he has a fundamental view that success should not be allowed.”
Wu argued in his book, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age, that increasing concentration throughout the economy has led to concentrated wealth and power, as well as radicalized policies that threaten American democracy. Wu, who coined the term ‘net neutrality’, previously served as senior enforcement counsel for the New York Attorney General and as senior adviser to the Federal Trade Commission.
Wu’s appointment still leaves important antitrust positions incomplete. Biden should appoint another head of the antitrust division or a permanent chairman for the FTC. Progressive pressures on the administration to appoint nominees without ties to the technology industry. They say a revolving door between the antitrust agencies and lawyers representing technology companies has led to a lax enforcement.
The American Economic Liberties Project, an antimonopoly group that joined other organizations in urging Biden to reject nominees with ties to Silicon Valley, welcomed Wu’s appointment and called for similar choices for other positions. Sarah Miller, the group’s executive director, attributed Wu to the revival of the idea that antitrust and competition policy is a tool to ‘decentralize corporate power for the benefit of working people.’
“The Biden administration has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn this idea into action – and Tim, hopefully in conjunction with additional appointments that bring similar minds and visions to this work, is an excellent choice to lead,” he said. Miller said.
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