Welcome back! Past few days in FTC land have been wild.
From Politico's report to now...
NY Post.
- - Rift at the FTC.
- - One Democrat taking a sympathetic view on the merger.
- - One Republican already in favour.
- - Lina wants it blocked
- - Biden reportedly wants the deal approved.
CWA.
- - Released a statement the next day, telling the FTC to approve the deal, specifically calling out Lina.
Brad Smith: President of Microsoft.
- - Releases an opinion piece through WSJ on the same day that blocking the deal would be bad.
- - Confirms a 10-year contract to make each new "Call of Duty" release available on PlayStation the same day it comes to Xbox.
Zenimax
- - Over 300 Zenimax employees vote to unionise on the same day, Microsoft staying neutral, CWA again praises Microsoft.
Found the man responsible for all these twists at the FTC.
Lina seems to really want this deal blocked in a desperate attempt to look like she's going hard on big tech. Microsoft is using their political influence to sway the Democrats on the panel over, I think Biden will want it approved after they just slapped down railway unions, now if this is approved, it could become the largest tech union in America, it has the chance to send a ripple effect across the entire industry, workers also get a major win.
If Lina does block it, then she's just sending a big fuck you to unions and workers which definitely isn't a good look for the Democrats. Considering there's zero strong arguments that this is a monopoly, or that this significantly lessens competition (actually easier to argue that it increases it) or that it harms consumers in a significant way compared to the benefits to consumers. It'd really be a block simply cause "big tech bad".
Essay Pro