President Donald Trump said his administration is looking into antitrust violations by Amazon, Facebook and Google parent Alphabet.
In a video interview with Axios' Jonathan Swan and Jim VandeHei that aired on Sunday, Trump said he's "not looking to hurt" the U.S. tech giants but is considering action.
"We are looking at [antitrust] very seriously," Trump said. "Look, that doesn't mean we're doing it, but we're certainly looking and I think most people surmise that, I would imagine."
Trump said others have also considered action against tech companies but a "previous administration" stopped that. "They were talking about this years ago. You know they were actually talking about this same subject — monopoly."
Shares of the three tech companies were essentially flat in premarket trading on Monday.
The president has repeatedly attacked Amazon, saying without evidence that package deliveries by the U.S. Postal Service for Amazon were costing the service money.
Trump has also been critical of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.
Mike Allen, co-founder and executive editor of Axios, told CNBC on Monday he thinks Trump was being serious about this inquiry into big tech.
"The president has been talking about this for a long time," Allen said in a "Squawk Box" interview. He also mentioned Trump's "obsession" with Amazon.
Tech companies have been under the microscope in Washington recently on efforts to prevent foreign meddling in U.S. elections.
TRUMP’S LOOKING AT ANTITRUST FOR SILICON VALLEY ‘VERY SERIOUSLY’
President Donald Trump is considering antitrust actions against Silicon Valley giants as a means of regulation, he told Axios on HBO in an interview aired Sunday.
“I do have a lot of people talking about monopoly when they mention those three in particular,” Trump said on Google, Facebook, and Amazon. The president continued, “we are looking at [antitrust] very seriously … Look, that doesn’t mean we’re doing it, but we’re certainly looking and I think most people surmise that, I would imagine.”
LIONEL BONAVENTURE,NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images
Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with Silicon Valley, which he views as antithetical to conservative free expression. The president told The Daily Caller in a recent interview he believes Facebook and Google are interfering in the U.S. election on behalf of the Democratic Party.
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“I think they already have” interfered in the election, he told TheDC. Trump added, “I mean the true interference in the last election was that — if you look at all, virtually all of those companies are super liberal companies in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
The president also believes Amazon is unfairly taking advantage of the U.S. postal system and driving local businesses out of the market place.
