Jonathan Kanter on Big Tech, Antitrust Laws, and the Future of AI

A competitive economy leads to not just opportunities for all, it leads to a free society. Antitrust is one of these really strange areas that doesn't neatly break down along partisan lines. We need to make sure that technologies are being reinvested and used to empower our workforce, but to do so in a way that's safe and secure.

Thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be with you.

Yes. So let me unpack that a little bit. It is hard to imagine a technology or company or industry that has so much influence over society than big tech. Think about a small number of companies control what billions of people across the world see every day. A small number of companies consume a massive amount of wealth relative to the rest of the economy. A small number of companies determine the pace of innovation and growth not just for our country but for society at large. Now that is not to say that these companies are bad. It's simply to say that we need more competition, we need more opportunity and we need more choice. Here at Harvard Business School where we have this wonderful debate today, there's a whole sea of people with wonderful innovative ideas. My dream is that those people can start the next great public company and that the Mag 7 will become the Mag 17 or the MAG 70. That is the world we should aspire to. But I am concerned that today's world only has enough room for a small number of companies who have a disproportionate amount of wealth and power.

Yeah, we achieved a lot in a very small amount of time. So, thinking about big tech, we took actions against Apple. We took two actions against Google. We won a massive antitrust case against Google. The biggest monopolization case in 20 years. We also brought other cases that were just as important in areas of health care, housing, agriculture, defense and others because what we believe and I believe to my core is that a competitive economy is a free economy. A competitive economy leads to not just opportunities for all, it leads to a free society. And so we're really about law enforcement, not regulation. We want to make sure that there are lines on the road. Companies have rules that they have to abide by so that the next entrepreneurs that come along have every opportunity to succeed.

So, I'm optimistic about the direction of the Trump administration. I think we've seen a trajectory over the last 10 or 15 years that is leading toward greater appreciation of antitrust enforcement. Free markets require competitors. Competition requires competitors. Free markets require participants and rules of the road. I think there is an understanding that if we are going to go lighter on regulation, we need to make sure that the marketplace can police itself through a competitive vibrant marketplace. That seems to be the direction the Trump administration is going with respect to big tech and other areas. And that was certainly the position that we took at the antitrust division at the Department of Justice.

So we started a very important case against Google. We litigated it in the DC district court and we won. It was a significant momentous victory against a large tech company for violating the antitrust laws. We proposed a number of remedies, things that the court can impose to help restore some of the competition that was lost as a result of the anti-competitive behavior. The Trump administration recently filed a brief in that same proceeding largely keeping intact our proposals and I think this is consistent. When I was at the antitrust division in the administration, I saw just as much support from Republicans as I did from Democrats. And sometimes I saw opposition from Democrats that I didn't see from Republicans. Antitrust is one of these really strange areas that doesn't neatly break down along partisan lines. It's one of these areas that really breaks down about your philosophy for how you want the economy to work. Do you want an economy that creates opportunity for all? Do you want an economy that creates growth and greater geographic dispersion of wealth and a demographic dispersion of wealth? Do you want an economy where entrepreneurs can come up with new ideas and that their ability to achieve terminal value isn't limited to an exit strategy selling to a large company but where these entrepreneurs have the opportunity to build the next great business, thrive and succeed for the long term, employ lots of people and bring great new products to market.

The way to compete against China is not to be more like China. We are at our best as a country when we are putting our eggs in the basket of capitalism and competition. When we are allowing a thousand flowers to bloom and competition is motivating companies to do better, to give more, to innovate more. That is how we are going to compete on the world stage. We are not a command and control economy. We are not an economy with state-owned enterprises or controlled enterprises. We are best when entrepreneurs have the ability to flourish and compete. And we want our big companies to compete. We want our big companies to thrive. I'm not here to say they should be out of business. I'm here to say that they need someone nipping at their heels to make sure that they do a better job.

Yeah, I would say it's a combination of size and power. But let's unpack that a little bit. So the MAG 7, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Tesla, these companies collectively have over $500 billion in cash reserves. That's over $500 billion that is not being reinvested back into the economy. From 2020 to 2023, the MAG 7 spent more than $700 billion on stock repurchases. This is money that is not being reinvested back in the economy. A lot of the capex now in the MAG 7 is to each other, whether it's buying chips from Nvidia or Google paying Apple over 20 billion for search defaults. This is money that is off the field that we need back reinvested back into the US economy so that we can thrive. And what we want are policies that make sure that they are doing that, that they have enough competition to do that. What we did at the antitrust division is we did focus on accountability. We focused on when companies instead of competing on the merits through better innovation were using their power not to control how they build their own products but essentially these large companies are regulating smaller companies. They're telling these smaller companies you can't build the product the way you want. You can't charge what you want. You can't innovate the way you want. Those kinds of restrictions that protect the dominance of the large companies but limit the competitiveness of smaller companies are the kinds of accountability that we've put forward at the antitrust division.

At the same time, I think there are a lot of other important dimensions to this. Think about here in 2025 how much data tech companies collect. We have no comprehensive privacy legislation in the United States. Even after all these years, we have next to nothing. And I think when people look around and they think about the influence, the control, the amount of data that these companies have, they want some basic standards. I think of it as lines on the road. Again, we want these companies to succeed. We want them to thrive, but we want there to be room not just for them, but for others, new entrepreneurs as well. And we also want to make sure that there are lines on the road so that safety and security are top of mind and are protected by, you know, not overly invasive but surgically targeted government laws and rules.

Absolutely. These are extremely popular. And it's why there's so much support on both sides of the aisle. I think the sense is that Americans believe in having control over their own lives and destiny. And whether it's the government overreaching or a big company overreaching, they don't want somebody telling them how to live their lives. And I think there's a sense that the power of these companies while there's a lot to admire and there are great innovations come at a cost. And that cost is giving up control over your data, over your life, over what you think, over what you see. And it's important to make sure that we maintain our freedom by ensuring that we have a free, open, competitive economy with lots of different options, lots of different choice and that companies really are innovating and providing services and products for the benefit of our people.