Business Insider's Aaron Holmes he says that three of the lawmakers tasked with conducting an antitrust investigation into its activities Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google own over $100.000 worth of stock in these tech companies.
Of course it is not the best way to conduct research.
In his post, Holmes states that board member Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin owns more than $ 98.000 in shares in all four companies combined. California-based Zoe Lofgren owns $ 15.000 worth of shares in Facebook, Apple and Alphabet, though she recently sold some of them. Steve Chabot of Ohio has $ 50.000 in stock on Facebook.
It should be noted that investigators are not illegal if they own stock in the companies they are investigating, but it certainly could be conflict interests.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet will testify before its antitrust committee Parliamenton Monday, July 27. However, Axios reports that this could be delayed until August 3 to allow Washington to mourn former civil rights leader John Lewis, who died earlier this week.
The research aims to find out if these companies use their huge influence in the markets to stifle competition from smaller competitors. It will be held under the auspices of the United States Department of Justice and the Parliamentary Judiciary Committee.
