A Block Of Google’s Wiz Buy Would Reveal Anti-Business Side Of Trump

Google isn’t at all certain that it will be as prominent tomorrow as it is today. See its planned acquisition of New York City-based Wiz if the previous sentence confuses you.

It seems only Google management and its shareholders understand what’s true, that success in business by its very description has ephemeral qualities. Translated, prosperous businesses that rest on their laurels are soon enough rendered old news. Google isn’t standing still.

Through its proposed acquisition of Wiz, Google is trying to discover a business future that is anything but certain. But for a problem of government that often has a problem with “Big” of any kind.

Antitrust types at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FTC frequently find it difficult to see what Google’s leadership clearly does: unless the noun, verb and adjective continues to evolve, it will soon enough be knocked from its top-of-the-business pyramid perch. Which once again explains Google’s planned acquisition.

At $30 billion, it’s Google’s largest yet. And to management and shareholders, it’s a necessary acquisition as Google competes with Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and in business sectors that haven’t yet been created by Silicon Valley’s intrepid minds.

It raises a question: will the Trump administration try to block the purchase? The question is a crucial one, and it will say a lot about the Administration’s stance toward business.

Notable about Google’s purchase offer is that it’s not the first time it’s made a play for Wiz. A year ago, Google offered $23 billion for the then four-year-old startup. It was rejected by Wiz’s owners. Which arguably wouldn’t have mattered as is. A Biden administration that made sport of antitrust lawsuits and warring against “Big” (think former FTC Chair Lina Khan) in general almost certainly would have erected insurmountable barriers to any kind of acquisition of that size.

Which raises the question again: what will the Trump administration do? And in asking the question, it should be said that blocking Google’s acquisition would not unreasonably define Trump and his appointees as anti-business.

To understand why, remember that Google is presently planning to spend tens of billions on Wiz not because it’s certain about what’s ahead, but precisely because it’s not. Wiz is a speculation, and an expensive one at that. Which is the point, or should be the point understood by the DOJ and the FTC: if Google does nothing its days as Google are numbered, but it’s also possible its purchase of Wiz will prove a dud that similarly sets Google on a path to obsolescence. In business, the future is opaque.

The only business certainty is that the future will look nothing like the present. Google is working feverishly to discover a future that it wants to maintain its prominence in, and the size of its bid for Wiz illustrates this truth well.

If the Trump administration mimics the Biden administration that preceded it, it will render Google a sitting duck; one unable to at least try to position itself for a tomorrow that will look nothing like today. Meaning, a block of Google’s bid for Wiz will rightly earn for Donald Trump the anti-business descriptor that formerly described Joe Biden well.