The Morning: Breaking up Google
The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com>
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2025-04-22 12:44
Good morning. The world is mourning Pope Francis. Harvard sued the Trump administration over its threats to cut funding. Trump stood by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the latest group chat revelations. More news is below. But first, I explain why the government is trying to break apart big tech companies like Google and Meta.
Big Tech’s troublesYesterday, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to break up Google. The judge had already declared that the company has a monopoly in online search, and the government argues that the solution is to take apart one of the biggest corporations in the world. The government’s position reflects its increasingly aggressive approach toward Big Tech. In a separate case on Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online advertising. And a federal trial against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, began last week. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg took the stand to defend the company, and more executives are expected to testify in the coming months. Not so long ago, Washington was smitten with Silicon Valley. But then tech companies consolidated power, and lawmakers grew skeptical. Over time, members of both parties decided they had to dismantle what they felt were monopolies. Now Big Tech faces two important issues in these cases: a broader policy debate over monopolies, and President Trump’s personal feelings toward the companies. Today’s newsletter explains both. Bigger businessFirst, the policy debate. The federal lawsuits argue that tech companies use their size to stifle competition. (My colleague David McCabe broke down the major cases here.) Exhibit A: Google’s handling of online search. The company has made itself the default search option on its products, such as the Chrome web browser and the Android operating system. It also pays Apple and others to use its search engine as the default on their phones. Similarly, Meta has bought competitors, like Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp, to consolidate its power. Meta says that it still faces plenty of competition, including from newer apps like TikTok. My colleague Mike Isaac pointed to a telling line from Zuckerberg’s testimony last week in which he quoted a former Intel executive: “Only the paranoid survive.” That remark acts as a sort of Rorschach test for both sides. “For the government, it means Zuckerberg and his lieutenants were constantly monitoring the competitive landscape and were willing to quickly snuff out even the faintest threat to his business,” Mike said. “For Zuckerberg, it means that his position as king of the social media hill is always tenuous. One day you’re on top, like Myspace. The next you’re in the gutter — like Myspace.” All of this reflects a broader trend, one that isn’t unique to the tech industry. Over the past several decades, big business has become bigger. The largest companies have gobbled up more of their industries, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:
For everyday Americans, less competition can mean lower wages, higher prices and worse products. The classic example is internet service. Across much of the country, people have only one or two options for internet. Providers get away with higher prices, spotty coverage and bad customer service because they know their users don’t have better alternatives. Corporate consolidation across all industries costs the typical American household more than $5,000 a year, one economist estimated. Trump’s choiceThe most important factor in these cases, though, might be Trump. Yes, his administration and his supporters have advanced the antitrust cause. But Trump sometimes puts his personal opinions over policy interests. He could do the same here — and get his administration to drop the cases against Google, Meta and others. Knowing this, tech giants have tried to gain Trump’s favor. The companies’ leaders appeared at Trump’s inauguration, smiling and clapping as the president delivered his speech. Zuckerberg stopped fact-checking at Facebook and Instagram, agreeing with Trump and other critics that it was biased against conservatives and calling it “something out of ‘1984.’” Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, met recently with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to hear about Republicans’ concerns, Politico reported. So far, the overtures haven’t persuaded Trump to drop the lawsuits or settle them. But the cases still have weeks or months left — maybe more with appeals. The tech giants hope they can change Trump’s mind by then.
He was, as our Rome bureau chief Jason Horowitz put it, “a pope of surprises.” Jason — who covered Pope Francis from the day of his election a dozen years ago through his death from a stroke at age 88 yesterday morning — was on vacation in Tuscany when the news broke. He started writing from the car back to Rome and filed several dispatches throughout the day. Francis “kept the church he led, the world he cared so much about and the reporters who followed him on their toes,” Jason wrote. “I covered him in unexpected destinations — Mongolia, Iraq, Myanmar — where he drew attention to humanitarian plights that were off the global radar.” Among those trips was one to Bangladesh in 2017, where the pope was “visibly moved, his voice tight,” as he met with members of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group. “That hammered home how much Francis cared about the plight of migrants, the displaced victims of war and the most forgotten and marginalized among us, no matter their religion,” Jason wrote. “For him, their suffering was real.” On the papal plane, Jason says, Francis was “an easygoing guy with a good sense of humor, better at glad-handing the news media” than most politicians. “He willingly compared notes with me on getting stuck in elevators after a week in which we had both gotten stuck in elevators,” Jason added. “I saw him accept enough sweets to feed an army.” Jason was one of five Times journalists working on the ground in Rome yesterday, according to our Europe editor, Adrienne Carter. She said that number would likely double in coming days for Francis’ funeral and the conclave to choose his successor. When the Vatican announced the pope’s death, it was Adrienne who set into motion a plan crafted years before and updated when Francis landed in the hospital with pneumonia in February. “Day 1 is in many ways the straightforward part — it’s what comes next that requires the deeper thinking and the richer reporting,” she said. “How do you get behind the scenes of this secretive moment, the conclave? How do you get the inner workings of this sometimes impenetrable institution? How do you understand the politics of the moment, the different influences factions may have?” It’s a story our global newsroom will be covering intensely over the coming days and weeks. Read highlights of our report below. Related: Francis’ death deprives the world of a consistent moral guidepost. There is no obvious alternative to fill the void, Jason writes. More on Francis
Harvard
Pete Hegseth
Deportations
More on the Trump Administration
In One Map
The federal government employs about 2.3 million civilian workers, and many of them are far from Washington, D.C. The map above shows where employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs, including physicians and nurses, work across the country. The Trump administration has proposed cutting up to 80,000 jobs at the agency. Zach Levitt, a graphics editor, is using government payroll data to show how federal workers were dispersed before recent layoffs and buyouts. See more maps here. International
Other Big Stories
Opinions The age of imperial papal power over the Catholic Church ended with Pope Francis’ death. The new era might bring new converts to Catholicism, Ross Douthat writes. To address dueling views of the church, cardinals must come together with respect and care when choosing the new pope, Austen Ivereigh writes. A subscription to match the variety of your interests. News. Games. Recipes. Product reviews. Sports reporting. A New York Times All Access subscription covers all of it and more. Subscribe today.
Hidden cherubs: While inspecting a villa in Rome, an electrician stumbled across long-lost frescoes by Carlo Maratta, a 17th-century painter. Earth Day: What’s the single best thing you can do for the planet? Here are experts’ answers. How? George Clooney said again that he and his wife, Amal, have never had a fight, The Cut reports. Most clicked yesterday: “My Dinner with Adolf,” a satirical essay by Larry David. Trending online yesterday: Francis’ death got people talking about “Conclave,” a movie about the secretive process choosing a new pope. Lives Lived: Chuck Connelly was a prolific Neo-Expressionist artist with an uncompromising personality whose paintings depicted scenes like Noah’s Ark breaking apart in a storm and a huge candy-cane-colored funnel cloud looming over a rural landscape. He died at 70.
Boston Marathon: John Korir won the men’s elite (his brother Wesley claimed the title in 2012). Sharon Lokedi won the women’s title with a record-setting time of 2:17:22. N.B.A.: The Pistons and Clippers won their playoff games, evening their series against the Knicks and Nuggets. These may be the best first-round series of the postseason.
In New York City, where costs run high and making friends can be hard, a free board game night has become a hit. Hundreds of people, many of them new to the city, gather once a month in an office building food court to play games old (chess and mahjong) and new (Exploding Kittens and Wavelength). Read about the night here. More on culture
Chop six cloves of garlic for these hoisin garlic noodles. Read a good romance novel. See a preview of the Nintendo Switch 2.
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were graphing, harping and paragraphing. And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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