WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 31: Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on January 31, 2024 in Washington, DC. The committee heard testimony from the heads of the largest tech firms on the dangers of child sexual exploitation on social media. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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U.S. movie theatres filled again last weekend with parents and children attending a KPop Demon Hunters “singalong.” For those who don’t already know, KPop Demon Hunters is the most streamed film in Netflix history.
What’s important about the phenomenon is that seemingly no one, including Netflix, predicted it. How we know this can be found in demand for KPop Demon Hunters Halloween costumes that well outstripped supply according to the Wall Street Journal, not to mention that the movie made it to theaters only after its wholly unexpected popularity on Netflix.
As Netflix studio chief Dan Lin told the Journal, he only expected it to be a “niche hit.” Paraphrasing George Will, tomorrow in business is another country. Are antitrust attorneys inside the Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) listening?
Whether they are or not is a question worth asking in consideration of a recent report from the Washington Post about surging AI investment. It indicated that Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon “are set to spend $370 billion this year on construction of data centers.” Notable about the sizable cash outlays is that they’re evolving.
While Google initially planned $85 billion worth of AI spending in 2025, it has upped the number to between $91 and $93 billion. Meta’s spending will be on the $72 billion side of its initial range of $66 to $72 billion, but with plans for “notably larger” expenditures in 2026. As for Microsoft, it similarly expects spending to increase from the $80 billion earmarked for 2025.
The sizable amounts of capital that some of the giants of the technology sector are putting to work will hopefully catch the eye of antitrust forces inside the Trump administration. That’s because at present, Google is still enduring antitrust scrutiny in search and digital advertising from the DOJ, while Amazon, Meta and Microsoft face antitrust charges from the FTC. Unknown is why.
Which requires a pivot to Mark Zuckerberg. In a recent earnings call referenced by the Post, he was open about the possibility that Meta and others are presently overinvesting. The problem for them all is that they can’t risk not overinvesting given the obsolescence that awaits them if they do nothing while the commercial outlook changes before their eyes. Crucial about what Meta et al are doing is that their actions are decidedly not those of a “monopoly.”
Stating what should be obvious, corporations that enjoy “monopoly” power aren’t investing so substantially in what is an opaque future. And opaque future it is, as evidenced by Zuckerberg’s own admission.
Second, stop and consider how much Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft directed toward AI-related growth from 2020-2024, versus 2025. The latter is essential to contemplate when it’s remembered that the DOJ introduced its case against Google in 2020, the FTC its own against Meta in 2020, Amazon in 2023, and Microsoft in 2024. Get it?
If not, it’s useful to point out just how much the technology sector has changed since antitrust forces in the federal government went on the attack. The timing signals that the cases are a long look backward as evidenced by, among other things, the kind of investment pursued by those under attack in 2025, and soon enough, 2026.
The simple, basic truth is that lawsuits introduced during the Biden administration, and that have continued during the Trump administration, are no longer relevant in consideration of where the technology sector is headed. Which calls for the Trump administration to save face by quietly, but firmly calling off the antitrust dogs.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2025/11/05/soaring-ai-spending-mocks-doj-and-ftc-antitrust-attacks-on-big-tech/
