The Blubber

Donald Trump says Google, $GOOGL, ‘has to be careful’ or it will be ‘shut down’.

Trump casually told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo that “Google has to be careful” because “they’ve been very irresponsible” and he suspects “Google is going to be close to shut down, because I don’t think Congress is going to take it.”

In typical Trump fashion, he made these remarks after mentioning that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had called him following the assassination attempt, whereas “nobody called from Google.” This might seem like typical Trump transactional rhetoric—after all, he had recently labeled Facebook “the enemy of the people” while shifting his stance on banning TikTok. A single phone call and “badass” comment appear to have restored Google’s standing in his eyes.

“Does Google need to have YouTube?”

However, there’s more to Trump’s comments than they might initially suggest. They connect to a group of Silicon Valley VCs, who have recently emerged as financial supporters of the Trump campaign. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have expressed concerns about Google’s power, stating it is “more powerful than probably 95 percent of countries in the world,” while supporting Trump. Peter Thiel has been backing anti-Google regulatory efforts for years, even labeling the company “treasonous.”

Thiel-supported Trump running mate JD Vance has spoken positively about FTC Chair Lina Khan at antitrust conferences, praising her efforts and advocating for the breakup of major platform companies. Last month at a Y Combinator event in Washington, DC, Vance questioned, “Does Google need to have YouTube? Does Google need to have all these other platforms that are built underneath the Google umbrella? You can make the same argument with Instagram, Facebook, and other Meta services.”

So why does Vance hold this view?

It’s largely because, like many conservatives, Vance is frustrated with how the major platforms handle content moderation.