Microsoft Faces FTC Cloud and AI Antitrust Probe as Other Tech Cases Advance

The Federal Trade Commission is examining Microsoft's cloud and artificial intelligence businesses, according to documents reviewed by The Verge and reported on 1 June. The civil investigative demands work like subpoenas. They went to at least half a dozen companies that compete with Microsoft. Each runs more than 15 pages, with more than 15 questions and often extensive sub-parts.

The probe is not a lawsuit. FTC staff must still decide whether to recommend a complaint, and the agency's two commissioners would vote on it.

The documents ask about Microsoft's business agreements, licensing arrangements and product interoperability, according to The Verge, which obtained previously unreported details from an industry source granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic information. The stated goal is to determine whether Microsoft used unfair methods of competition in violation of the FTC Act. Microsoft spokesperson Alex Haurek told The Verge the company is "cooperating fully with the FTC and believe our practices promote competition while delivering the innovative products our customers expect." The FTC did not respond to a request for comment.

Cloud pricing sits near the centre of the scrutiny. Customers have complained, often anonymously for fear of retaliation, that Microsoft's 2019 licensing changes made running Windows software on infrastructure outside Azure significantly more expensive, The Verge reported. In 2023, Google told the FTC that Microsoft used dominance in other areas to give its own cloud products an unearned advantage. Microsoft disputes that framing. Haurek pointed to Google as "a clear example" of competition, noting it grew 63 percent year over year and competes with AWS, the largest cloud provider.

Some questions appear designed to map the industry rather than Microsoft alone: organisational charts, marketing plans, product roadmaps, bundling, pricing, discounting and profitability. Others probe how hard it is to enter markets where Microsoft operates, asking about costs and barriers to entry. George Washington University law professor and former FTC chair William Kovacic told The Verge that this kind of information gathering tends to happen early in an investigation, and that the AI references could suggest the agency sees bundling as a possible illegal tying arrangement.

Parallel cases are moving elsewhere. China's State Administration for Market Regulation said on 15 September that Nvidia violated the country's antitrust law by failing to fully comply with conditions attached to its $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox in 2020, according to Ars Technica. The preliminary finding could bring fines of between 1 percent and 10 percent of the company's previous year's sales, and regulators can force changes to business practices. Ars Technica reported that SAMR reached its conclusion weeks before announcing it, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, and released the statement as US and Chinese officials prepared for trade talks in Madrid. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and SAMR did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

In the United States, four plaintiffs who subscribed to ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Gemini filed a proposed class action alleging the developers of those models violated antitrust laws by agreeing to slow AI development, Tom's Hardware reported on 21 September, citing the Associated Press. The suit argues the arrangement would reduce the value consumers get from paid AI subscriptions. Nick Rowley, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in the report that AI safety should not be controlled by "private self-serving agreements between the world's most powerful 'for profit' technology companies." OpenAI's Sam Altman responded on X that the company welcomes a federal framework for frontier AI safety but does not believe it needs an antitrust exemption or legislation to start that work, according to the same report.

What the cases share

Each matter is at a different stage, and none has produced a final liability ruling against the companies named. The Microsoft probe remains an information-gathering exercise with no guaranteed complaint. Nvidia faces a preliminary finding from a foreign regulator. The AI lawsuit is a proposed class action that has yet to be certified. What they share is a focus on whether the terms attached to dominant products, licensing, bundling or collective restraint, cross the line from hard competition into exclusion.

Kovacic's point about timing matters for anyone tracking the Microsoft case: the questions themselves signal which markets and tactics the agency considers worth watching, not what it has concluded.