Microsoft's multi-billion dollar investment into open AI and its all-out embrace of chat

gb-t could now be the subject of a merger investigation in the European Union.

Why is it always Europe?

It's Tuesday, January 9th.

Welcome to the Tech Check Podcast.

I'm Gerejir D'Reosa.

And I'm Mark Gilbert. The European Commission more than just signaling it's looking at

Microsoft and open AI all out going on the record saying it's going to take a closer

look at that deal at how AI companies are being funded, D, these large investments from the big into the small D, and yeah, it's always Europe.

It's always Europe. I feel like that should be our tagline on tech regulation for the last 10 years. But you know why do we care? Because we're always going through these cases and even though the European regulators are more aggressive.

It usually amounts to a fine which amounts to a speeding ticket or, you know, like a slap on the hand for these

tech companies. It doesn't really change much other than take a few billion dollars off of

their balance sheets where the billions are flush.

But they have been more aggressive and arguably more effective, right, than their American

counterparts and regulating big tech. This is no exception. You made an

an interesting point. I don't know if you meant to do this, but you said it's going on the record. The European Commission's going on the record, and that's true because

the FTC is doing something similar, but it's not as vocal about it and sort of an interesting

contrast and when Europe goes over tech companies they really go all out.

Yeah, I was going to say that we should stop here and quote some of these, the quotes

in the European Commission press release because the FTC is a much murkier, you know, I shouldn't say murkier, it's just that American regulatory agencies

tend to not put out press releases and do interviews and comment until there's an action or a

lawsuit.

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