Big Tech To Testify On Capitol Hill

CEOs from four tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google — have all agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.

Apple CEO Tim Cook had appeared to be the last to confirm his attendance at the hearing, according to a recent report from Politico. According to the report, Facebook and Google both agreed to make their top executives available if the other companies did the same. Amazon said in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that CEO Jeff Bezos would be willing to testify, according to a copy obtained by CNBC last month.

The hearing would mark the first time all four executives testified together in front of Congress, though it’s not yet clear if the event would take place in person or virtually given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Swisher reported the hearing would occur in late July, though the Judiciary spokesperson could not yet share details on the date and format of the testimony. Though Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook are all veterans of congressional testimony, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has never before appeared before Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee announced its antitrust investigation into the four tech companies in June 2019. Testimony from the CEOs would mark one of the final steps before completing the probe, which is expected to produce new legislative proposals to reform and regulate the digital market. In a January interview, Cicilline told CNBC it’s “clear” to him that the digital marketplace is “not functioning properly, that there’s not robust competition there.”