America is reviewing tech giants' deals to attract startup talent.

 

the U.S. Federal Trade Commission

America is reviewing tech giants' deals to attract startup talent.

The chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, told Bloomberg that the commission is conducting an audit of major technology companies that poach employees from startups instead of acquiring them outright.

This growing practice, in which large technology companies pay for the technology and talent of startups without buying the company itself, is a way to avoid antitrust review.

"We are starting to examine these talent acquisitions to make sure they are not an attempt to circumvent" the merger review process that the committee is conducting, Ferguson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Last month, Nvidia agreed to license chip technology from startup Groove and poach its CEO, Jonathan Ross, a former Google employee.

In similar recent deals, Microsoft’s chief artificial intelligence officer came through a $650 million deal with a startup, which was categorized as a licensing fee, and Meta spent about $15 billion to lure the CEO of ScaleAI without acquiring the company.

Amazon also recruited founders from Adept AI. These deals have been subject to regulatory scrutiny, but none have been reversed so far, according to Reuters.

In the interview, Ferguson blamed the administration of former US President Joe Biden for its strict enforcement of antitrust laws, which prompted companies to intensify this practice.

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners of the commission, prompting a lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court that could tighten the president's control over government agencies designed by Congress to be above politics.