Google has offered to break apart in a bid to avoid greater punishment for antitrust violations from federal regulators, and Elon is done with the Twitter deal.
Google has raised the prospect of separating a major business operation from the tech giant, auctioning and placing of online advertisements—to form a separate entity also under the umbrella of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, people close to Google reportedly told the WSJ.
It was unclear if the offer would satisfy the Department of Justice (DOJ), which declined to comment on the story, according to the WSJ.
The DOJ has long been investigating Google for monopolistic practices in the digital advertising market, and is preparing a lawsuit that could be filed as soon as this summer, the WSJ reported.
Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ’s antitrust chief, has a public track record of preferring court opinions to settlements, as they establish precedent and clarify and advance the legal code, CNBC reported.
“We need new published opinions from courts that apply the law in modern markets in order to provide clarity to businesses. This requires litigation that sets out the boundaries of the law as applied to current markets, and we need to be willing to take risks and ask the courts to reconsider the application of old precedents to those markets,” Kantar said in January.
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Last year, Google’s selling of ads on other websites and apps accounted for $31.7 billion of revenues, roughly 12% of Alphabet’s total.
The company also faces two ongoing probes in Europe on similar antitrust allegations, the New York Post reported.
In other tech news, Tesla CEO Elon Musk canceled his bid to purchase Twitter Friday, according to a letter from his lawyers published in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Twitter “appears to have made false and misleading representations” and “has not complied with its contractual obligations,” according to the letter. Mike Ringler, attorney for Skadden Arps, accused the company of refusing to provide information requested by Musk, including what percent of its monetizable users were fake or spam accounts.
Musk threatened to cancel his deal with Twitter June 6 after the company reportedly refused to hand over user data reports he had requested. The company has claimed that only 5% of its accounts are fake or spam, but Musk speculated that number could be four times higher.
“We are committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plan to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” the Twitter board said in a statement.
“Twitter has not provided information that Mr. Musk has requested for nearly two months notwithstanding his repeated, detailed clarifications intended to simplify Twitter’s identification, collection, and disclosure of the most relevant information sought in Mr. Musk’s original requests,” the letter from Musk’s attorney read.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for about $44 billion April 25 after the company attempted to thwart his buyout efforts.
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