Antitrust, Big Tech, and the Financial Markets Blind Spot

In this piece for Pro Market, author Anik Bhaduri addresses a critical blind spot in the regulation of Big Tech: the role that capital markets and corporate governance play in sustaining the dominance of firms such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. While antitrust authorities have focused on issues like monopolization, acquisitions, and platform power, Bhaduri argues that these efforts overlook the financial structures that reinforce Big Tech’s market position.

The article challenges the common assumption that shareholder primacy drives anticompetitive behavior. Bhaduri points to numerous examples of shareholders criticizing or suing technology companies over regulatory violations, privacy scandals, and antitrust misconduct. Rather than encouraging illegal conduct, many investors view such behavior as harmful to long-term shareholder value and broader economic welfare.

Instead, the author identifies dual-class share structures and the rise of index investing as key factors that insulate Big Tech executives from meaningful accountability. Founder-CEOs often retain outsized voting power despite limited ownership stakes, while the companies’ dominance in major stock indexes compels institutional investors to hold their shares regardless of governance concerns. This combination provides executives with access to vast pools of capital and encourages “empire-building” through acquisitions that frequently fail to create value for shareholders.

Bhaduri argues that these financial advantages directly strengthen Big Tech’s dominance in product markets by funding massive research investments, controlling startup financing, and weakening the deterrent effect of antitrust penalties. Drawing parallels to reforms introduced during the New Deal and more recent anti-concentration measures in Israel, he concludes that antitrust enforcement alone is insufficient. Meaningful constraints on Big Tech’s power will require complementary reforms in corporate governance and securities regulation to address the financial foundations of economic concentration…

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