Microsoft Faces UK Competition Investigation Over Hiring of AI Startup’s Founder, Key Staff

FILE - Mustafa Suleyman co founder and CEO of Inflection AI speaks to journalist during the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, England, on Nov. 1, 2023. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday, July 16, 2024 that its review of the hirings from Inflection AI turned up “sufficient information” to open an investigation. Microsoft hired Inflection’s co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business, along with several top engineers and researchers. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
FILE - Mustafa Suleyman co founder and CEO of Inflection AI speaks to journalist during the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, England, on Nov. 1, 2023. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday, July 16, 2024 that its review of the hirings from Inflection AI turned up “sufficient information” to open an investigation. Microsoft hired Inflection’s co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business, along with several top engineers and researchers. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
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Microsoft Faces UK Competition Investigation Over Hiring of AI Startup’s Founder, Key Staff

FILE - Mustafa Suleyman co founder and CEO of Inflection AI speaks to journalist during the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, England, on Nov. 1, 2023. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday, July 16, 2024 that its review of the hirings from Inflection AI turned up “sufficient information” to open an investigation. Microsoft hired Inflection’s co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business, along with several top engineers and researchers. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
FILE - Mustafa Suleyman co founder and CEO of Inflection AI speaks to journalist during the AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, England, on Nov. 1, 2023. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday, July 16, 2024 that its review of the hirings from Inflection AI turned up “sufficient information” to open an investigation. Microsoft hired Inflection’s co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business, along with several top engineers and researchers. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

British regulators opened a preliminary investigation on Tuesday into Microsoft's hiring of an AI startup's key staff over concerns that it could thwart competition in the booming artificial intelligence market.

The Competition and Markets Authority said its review of the hirings from Inflection AI, including its co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, turned up “sufficient information” to open an investigation.

Microsoft hired Suleyman to head up its consumer artificial intelligence business earlier this year, and brought over several top engineers and researchers. Suleyman co-founded the AI research lab DeepMind, which is now owned by Google, before setting up Inflection and is considered an influential figure in the AI world, The AP reported.

The watchdog has indicated that it was assessing whether the hirings amount to a merger that results in “a substantial lessening of competition” in the UK's AI market, in breach of the country's antitrust rules.

“We are confident that the hiring of talent promotes competition and should not be treated as a merger," Microsoft said in a statement. "We will provide the UK Competition and Markets Authority with the information it needs to complete its inquiries expeditiously.”

The British watchdog has until Sept. 11 to decide whether to give its approval or escalate the probe into an in-depth investigation. The authority has the power to reverse deals or impose fixes to address competition concerns.

Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have become concerned about how the biggest technology companies are gobbling up the talent and products of innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them.

Three members of the US Senate wrote last week to antitrust enforcers at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, urging them to investigate Amazon's purchase of San Francisco-based Adept. The deal will result in Adept's CEO and key employees going to Amazon and giving the e-commerce giant a license to Adept’s AI systems and datasets.



EU Says Trump Arrival Will Not Impact Big Tech Cases

The logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix, are displayed on a screen in this illustration picture taken December 3, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo
The logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix, are displayed on a screen in this illustration picture taken December 3, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo
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EU Says Trump Arrival Will Not Impact Big Tech Cases

The logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix, are displayed on a screen in this illustration picture taken December 3, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo
The logos of mobile apps, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix, are displayed on a screen in this illustration picture taken December 3, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo

The European Commission said on Tuesday it was assessing its cases against Apple, Google and Meta and that President-elect Donald Trump's impending arrival in the White House did not affect its commitment to enforcing its laws on big tech.

The European Commission has carried out a series of investigations into US tech firms under its Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which seek to make large platforms adhere to market rules and act against illegal content, according to Reuters.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said Europe was "institutionalizing censorship".

"We have been very clear that no matter which administration is in place in third countries, this will not affect our enforcement work," a Commission spokesperson told the EU's executive's daily briefing.

The Financial Times reported that the European Commission was reassessing its investigations of Apple, Meta and Google in a review that could lead it to scale back or change its investigations that could lead to fines as US groups urge Trump to intervene.

The Commission denied it was carrying out a review.

"What we do have is upcoming meetings to assess maturity of cases, to assess the allocation of resources and the general readiness of the investigation," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said that the cases were still being handled at a technical level and so not reached a point at which decisions could be taken.

"Obviously there may be a political reality which puts pressure on the technical work, but we need to distinguish the two stages because we need to have a court-proof investigation," another spokesperson said.