US Politics |OT|

[rapsuperstar31]

As Microsoft faces intensifying federal scrutiny, one of the company’s billionaire Democratic donors is now pressuring the party’s presumptive presidential nominee Kamala Harris to fire the government’s top antitrust regulator. The consumer watchdog has been actively scrutinizing Big Tech and fighting mergers — including one between Microsoft and an AI giant the donor cofounded.

If Harris follows through with the request as president and fires Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan, the move would run counter to polling from 2022 that highlights 44 percent of Americans want more regulations for Big Tech companies and other monopolies.

Harris has not yet detailed her plans for antitrust enforcement or consumer protection, and her record as California attorney general is mixed on reining in anticompetitive business practices.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that while Harris “remains a bit of an enigma in the business world,” one of her donors said she had privately “expressed skepticism of Ms Khan’s expansive view of antitrust powers.”

The same day, Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn founder and powerful venture capitalist, appeared on CNN to praise Harris’s record on business and told the network that Khan should be fired. Harris is reportedly planning a Silicon Valley fundraising drive alongside Hoffman in coming months.

Hoffman sits on the board of Microsoft after selling LinkedIn to the company in 2016 for more than $26 billion, then the largest acquisition in company history. Microsoft is currently facing scrutiny from Khan’s FTC for acquiring Inflection AI, a company that Hoffman cofounded in 2022 while sitting on Microsoft’s board. Hoffman’s venture capital firm Greylock invested $225 million in Inflection AI.

Hoffman has given millions to Democratic interests this campaign cycle, including a $6 million donation in March to Future Forward, a super PAC that was supporting President Joe Biden’s presidential bid and has now pivoted to funding Harris.

Before Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential election, Hoffman donated directly to the Biden-Harris campaign’s war chest, with the most recent — and largest — donation of $923,000 coming in January, for a total of $1.7 million.

“I’d already maxed out to Biden-Harris,” Hoffman said in the CNN interview.

During his CNN appearance, Hoffman talked up Harris’s business credentials, saying “Vice President Harris is much more of the pro-business candidate than Trump and Vance,” and said Khan was “waging war on American business.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called Hoffman’s comments on Khan “not acceptable,” arguing again for the overturn of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which drastically increased the scope of big money in politics. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has called for breaking up Big Tech companies, also issued a statement supporting Khan.

Looks like Microsoft's feeling are still hurt from the FTC going after the Activision purchase. I'm all in on Harris, but I hate these big companies thinking they can buy whatever they want with their influence and donations.