The US Federal Trade Commission is proceeding with a huge antitrust probe of Microsoft that was opened on the vanning days of the Biden administration, indicating that Donald Trump’s new FTC president Andrew Ferguson is going to prioritize the investigation of technical veterans.
In recent weeks, FTC employees have continued to work on investigation, to gather information together with companies and other groups, according to people familiar with the case, who asked not to be nominated to discuss confidential probes.
The FTC sent a so -called citizen investigative demand to Microsoft, similar to a sabpona at the end of the previous year. The document, which was seen by a copy of a copy of Bloomberg, forces the company to turn on the rems of data about its AI operation, including the cost of training the model and getting data, is going back to 2016. The agency sought details about the data centers of Microsoft, which struggles to find enough computing power to meet the customer’s demand and the company’s software licensing practice.
FTC is also investigating Microsoft’s decision to reduce funding on its own artificial intelligence projects after a deal with OpenAI, which can be considered as a competition for AI market injury.
A company has heard regularly from FTC on the issue of licensing practices of Microsoft as the demand for investigation was sent, one of the people said. The FTCs and lawyers of that company have discussed what information can the agency ask for more widespread, formal request. The company found a small list of questions several weeks ago, asking for the documents of the company provided to other regulators. FTC is further seeking information about licensing rules, Microsoft said that it would be effective at the end of this year, the person said.
Description
The agency said in the demand for information that it wants to determine whether Microsoft’s profit from other parts of the business gives it an edge over other AI companies. The agency also said that it wants details about the lack of data center capacity of Microsoft to better understand the costs behind cloud-committing services. They will help the details to determine whether to bring a case.
Since receiving the demand for FTC, Microsoft may have demanded to narrow the scope of information that is being asked to turn on – a specific step by the companies investigating by the agency. Such widespread no -confidence investigations can take years and not always result in bringing a case to the agency.
Microsoft spokesman Alex Hurek said, “We are working cooperatively with the agency.” FTC did not respond to the request for comments.
The development of the investigation is now in the hands of Ferguson and his new head, Daniel Guarnera, who joined the agency from the Department of Justice, where they worked on antitrust cases targeting Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc.
In his first public remarks since taking the position of the chair in late February, Ferguson said that investigating the technical field is his top priority. Initial steps include getting information about censorship by tech companies.
Ferguson supported a filing in support of billionaire Elon Musk in January, sued to sue to reorganize Openai’s plans as a more traditional profit business.
The Civil Investigative Demand was prepared by the FTC staff and was individually signed by former president Leena Khan, when the agency spent more than a year to hold an informal interview with Microsoft contestants and business partners, Bloomberg had earlier reported.
FTC of Ferguson has inherited several other cases against Khan’s Big Tech companies, including cases against Meta Platform Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.. The FTC quickly returned the comment that the lack of resources in the agency would obstruct its ability to start a test in September.
A separate antitrust case against Amazon’s retail trade is set to go for testing in October 2026.
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