Timothy Wu, professor of law at Columbia University, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Big Tech critic and antitrust hawk Tim Wu announced Friday he is joining the Biden administration to work on technology and competition policy on the National Economic Council.
The hire signals the White House is serious about competition policy and will likely be viewed favorably among progressives hoping to see greater enforcement of antitrust laws, especially against tech giants like Amazon and Facebook. Wu’s writing has played a major role in advancing the idea that major tech companies should be broken up to reinvigorate competition, particularly through his 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.”
Wu has helped shape some of the most important debates around technology in the past decade. He coined the term “net neutrality” to describe the idea that internet service providers shouldn’t discriminate between different types of communication online. Under the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission established a net neutrality rule, but it was reversed by the Trump FCC. However, the agency under President Joe Biden could resurrect the rule.
Wu recently taught antitrust law at Columbia University and worked at the New York attorney general’s office, the Federal Trade Commission and on the NEC under President Barack Obama.
Biden has yet to fill out the top antitrust enforcement roles in his administration, however. His picks for the FTC and Department of Justice Antitrust Division will either solidify the idea that he is ready to crack down on Big Tech, or undermine it. Reports on Biden’s potential picks for those roles have run the gamut from progressives aligned with Wu’s views to those who have gone on to work for or counsel the tech companies themselves. Critics fear the latter would be too lenient on Big Tech.
Bolstering regulation on the tech companies has been a rare unifying topic between Democrats and Republicans in the past few years. When House Democrats came out last year with their lengthy report on the alleged anticompetitive conduct of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, several key Republicans agreed with the main allegations of the report. Some GOP members supported the exact legislative changes proposed.
It’s also been a common thread between Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, under whom the DOJ and FTC brought antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook, respectively. The Biden administration is expected to continue those lawsuits and could even expand their scope.
