Senator Hawley's Antitrust Bills Take Aim At Mega-Corporations

Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a bill on April 12 designed to "crack down on mergers and acquisitions by mega-corporations" and make it easier to break up dominant firms through antitrust enforcement.¹ The "Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act," which targets the largest companies across all economic sectors, was then followed on April 19 by Hawley's "Bust Up Big Tech Act," meant to "break up Big Tech companies seeking to dominate multiple industries simultaneously."²

Both bills take aim at companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, which Hawley claims have "gobbled up our freedom and competition" at the expense of American consumers and workers. Though politicians on the other end of the political spectrum, e.g., Senator Amy Klobuchar, have also pushed for increased antitrust regulation of the most powerful companies, Hawley's portrayal of "woke mega-corporations" that are comfortable being "coddled by Washington politicians"