What you need to know
- Tim Cook has agreed to testify before a House antitrust committee.
- He will appear alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai.
- Cook was previously the only CEO who had not agreed to a recent request for testimony.
A report claims that Tim Cook has agreed to testify at a house antitrust hearing in July alongside the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
According to Kara Swisher, chair of the committee David Cicilline told her in an interview that all four CEOs had agreed to testify:
You can officially call it Techopalooza. Rep. David Cicilline has told me in an interview today the four CEOs of the most powerful tech companies in the world – Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon – have agreed to appear at a late July hearing on antitrust. Column coming!
SCOOP: You can officially call it Techopalooza. Rep. David Cicilline has told me in an interview today the four CEOs of the most powerful tech companies in the world – Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon – have agreed to appear at a late July hearing on antitrust. Column coming!SCOOP: You can officially call it Techopalooza. Rep. David Cicilline has told me in an interview today the four CEOs of the most powerful tech companies in the world – Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon – have agreed to appear at a late July hearing on antitrust. Column coming!— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) July 1, 2020July 1, 2020
According to follow-up tweets, Cicilline confirmed that Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezo, and Sundar Pichai would all appear for testimony alongside Tim Cook. She noted that the gathering of the four industry heavyweights would be "an epic show", but noted the importance of lawmakers doing their job and asking "pointed questions about the true impact of their power on competition."
Last month it emerged that letters had been sent to the four big tech CEOs requesting that they appear to give testimony. At the time, the use of subpoenas to secure testimony was not ruled out, and Rep. David Cicilline later reiterated that the committee had a right to get the witnesses and testimony that it needed to complete the investigation.
It had previously been reported that Tim Cook was the only CEO of the four not to commit to the process, however, it is understood that the other three have only agreed to testify if all four CEOs are present.
