Distinguished Teaching Professor, School of Law; formerly Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington University in St. Louis
Jonathan Kanter, former Assistant Attorney General for Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the DOJ's antitrust case against Google, what the remedy will be after the ad monopoly ruling, the FTC antitrust trial against Meta, Trump administration vs. Big Law, and more. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/42d859g
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Questions asked in this interview
7
0:00I'm curious if you were surprised in terms of the fact that this administration continues with, continued with that case, and what you think the ramifications are now going to be in terms of what they're going to ask for?
2:02Meaning, if the search case continues the way it's going to, do you see a moment where all of a sudden Google gets broken up and Meta gets broken up?
3:37If, in fact, both of these companies are effectively established as monopolies and whatnot, how much influence does this administration and the White House have on what the DOJ does to effort remedies?
4:45... you have any concern or worry that these cases are so backward looking and that the future is so very different, and that when you look at the competitive landscape today, it is nothing like what it was a decade ago or even five years ago?
6:40What do you think the Supreme Court would do and how would it all work?
8:11So, but if the Supreme Court rules that the executive orders are not, in fact, legal, does that undo the settlements that the Skaddens and Simpson Thachers and Paul Weiss and others made?
Last week, a court ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly in the advertising industry. Meantime, Meta, still in the midst of its own antitrust case with the FTC. Joining us right now for more on this administration's regulation, Jonathan Kanter, former Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division under President Biden, is also a CNBC contributor. And we welcome to the show this morning. Before we get into the Meta case, I'm curious what your reaction was to the Google scenario. I imagine you're happy about it, but are you? I'm curious if you were surprised in terms of the fact that this administration continues with, continued with that case, and what you think the ramifications are now going to be in terms of what they're going to ask for?
Yes. Hi, Andrew. Yes, I'm happy. No, I'm not surprised. And so this was a big victory for the Department of Justice and antitrust enforcement. I brought this case to break up Google's ad tech monopoly. These are the pipes and plumbing that sell ads everywhere in the internet. And it was a decisive victory for the DOJ. And in terms of the administration, there are a few things in Washington right now that can bring people together. Antitrust enforcement happens to be one of them. And antitrust enforcement against Big Tech happens to be perhaps the only thing in Washington that Democrats and Republicans can agree on.
Yeah. So I think there are two Google cases. There's the ad tech case and the search case. On the ad tech case, the one that we just won, that was about Google competing on the buy side, the sell side, owning the exchange in the middle, and then buying and selling on its own exchange. The only remedy that I can see is forcing Google to divest one side or the other at least, and then getting out of the exchange business. I think that's what we asked for in the case. I think that's what ultimately.
Do you see a bigger breakup? The reason I was going to this is, do you see a bigger breakup happening in tech under this administration? Meaning, if the search case continues the way it's going to, do you see a moment where all of a sudden Google gets broken up and Meta gets broken up? Because that's what we're really talking about here.
Yeah, I think it's a realistic possibility that we're going to have our AT&T moment for big tech and antitrust. You have three cases now and two others in the pipeline, all that have breakups as a possibility. But to be very clear about it, breakups aren't necessarily bad for the businesses. To the extent they have to divest a few pieces here and there, it actually may unlock a lot of value and I think be very good for our economy. I mean, some of these companies, you can see the Mag Seven become the Mag Eight overnight if they divested significant assets.
What do you make of the Meta case? And I'm curious also what you make and what you know about what we heard about in that Wall Street Journal article last week about Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to try to settle that case with Trump in advance.
I'm glad that the case was not settled at the White House. These are law enforcement actions. They should be handled with the appropriate degree of independence by the agencies. In terms of what I make of the case, I think the FTC has exceeded expectations thus far. The case is ultimately going to come down to whether you view social graphs and friends and family networks as competitive with performance and content graphs like TikTok and YouTube.
If, in fact, both of these companies are effectively established as monopolies and whatnot, how much influence does this administration and the White House have on what the DOJ does to effort remedies?
Yeah. So in our administration, those efforts of law enforcement would be handled independent of the White House. Law enforcement, there was a very significant wall up between the DOJ and the White House. I think those walls have come down in this administration. So potentially there will be influence. But thus far it appears that the administration is keeping an eye.
10 more exchanges in this transcript
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Kanter, J. (2025, April 21). Fmr. DOJ antitrust chief: Antitrust enforcement is most important in times of tech inflection points [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3095303/
MLA
Jonathan Kanter. "Fmr. DOJ antitrust chief: Antitrust enforcement is most important in times of tech inflection points." CNBC Television, 21 Apr. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3095303/.
BibTeX
@misc{kanter2025_3095303,
author = {Jonathan Kanter},
title = {Fmr. DOJ antitrust chief: Antitrust enforcement is most important in times of tech inflection points},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {apr},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3095303/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
