Big Tech Awaits Changing of EU Regulatory Guard

Two of the European Union’s top regulators are stepping down from their posts.

And as Wired reported Saturday (Sept. 22), experts say it’s too soon to tell what their replacements may bring.

Last week brought the resignation of EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, a longtime, outspoken foe of Big Tech companies.

“I’m sure [the tech giants are] happy Mr. Breton will go, because he understood you have to hit shareholders’ pockets when it comes to fines,” Umberto Gambini, a former adviser at the EU Parliament and now a partner at consultancy Forward Global, told Wired.

Breton’s replacement will be Finland’s Henna Virkkunen, from the center-right EPP Group, who has worked on the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

“Her style will surely be less brutal and maybe less visible on X than Breton,” said Gambini. “It could be an opportunity to restart and reboot the relations.”

Also leaving her regulatory role is Margrethe Vestager, who has spent 10 years as Europe’s top competition watchdog. She went out on a high note, with a court requiring Apple to pay a $14.4 billion tax bill in Ireland.

The report noted that while political priorities might be changing, the new rules introduced in the last five years still need to be enforced.

There’s still a legal fight over Google’s $1.7 billion antitrust fine, and that company is under investigation — along with Apple and Meta — for violating the Digital Markets Act. And companies like TikTok, Meta and X are also subject to DSA investigations.

“It is too soon for Elon Musk to breathe a sigh of relief,” says J. Scott Marcus, senior fellow at think tank Bruegel, who argued that Musk’s alleged practices as his social media platform would likely draw scrutiny no matter who was in charge of EU competition.

“The tone of the confrontation might become a bit more civil, but the issues are unlikely to go away,” Marcus said.

In other big tech news, PYMNTS wrote last week about new research that suggests tech giants could gain an edge in generative artificial intelligence (AI), raising questions about the competitive future of the sector, a trend that has many in the industry worried.

“We are likely to see decreasing prices for smaller models and continued differentiation across large models,” Alex Mashrabov, CEO of Higgsfield AI, told PYMNTS.

Observers say that a lack of competition in the generative AI industry could bring about higher prices and fewer choices for businesses hoping to integrate AI tools into their operations. This concentration of power might also hinder innovation, potentially slowing the development of new AI applications.