• Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general.
• Gaetz has criticized Big Tech for censoring conservatives and supports antitrust enforcement.
• The Department of Justice and the FTC enforce antitrust laws that affect big tech companies.

President-elect Donald Trump named Rep. Matt Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, a nomination that, if approved by the Senate, would give the Florida Republican sweeping legal power and the ability to follow through on his long-standing complaints against Big Tech.

Gaetz has frequently criticized against Big Techaccusing Silicon Valley companies of censoring conservatives, and has in recent years become a vocal advocate for antitrust enforcement, particularly against companies like Amazon, Meta and Alphabet.

“People are watching Silicon Valley, they think they can suppress us, discourage us. Maybe if you’re just a little less patriotic. Maybe if you conform a little more to their way of thinking, then you will be allowed to participate in the digital world,” Gaetz said during a 2021 appearance shortly after Trump was banned from social media media platforms following the insurrection of January 6.

“Well, you know what? Silicon Valley can’t cancel this movement, or this rally, or this congressman,” he told the audience. “We have a Second Amendment in this country and I think we have an obligation to use it.”

Still, it’s unclear how much impact his nomination for attorney general, if approved by the Senate, would have on Silicon Valley.

A representative for the congressman did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Both the Department of Justice and the FTC are responsible for enforcing antitrust laws in the United States. Current Lina Khan, Chair of the Federal Trade Commissionwhom Trump could end up replacing, has been aggressive in going after big tech companies. Khan worked to stifle billions of dollars of transactions for anticompetitive reasons, and the FTC filed lawsuits against Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, among others.

The work puts her somewhat in line with Gaetz and Vice President-elect JD Vance, who have praised her work. Gaetz said The Wall Street Journal in March, he hoped that “whoever the next FTC chairman is, he or she would continue many of the lawsuits brought by Chairman Khan against predatory companies.”

So even if Khan could leaveIt’s possible that the federal government’s antitrust policy toward big tech companies won’t change dramatically, according to Mark A. Kasten, an attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney who specializes in white-collar criminal defense, compliance and investigations. .

It could also depend on who Trump chooses to chair the FTC. Although he would have to fire Khan, it’s unclear who he would choose to run the agency instead.

“Ultimately, we still expect a significant uptick in M&A activity,” said Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at BTIG. Barron’s after Gaetz’s appointment, referring to mergers and acquisitions.

“But the hurdles for Big Tech could remain high,” he added.

Kasten, who has defended clients under Justice Department investigation, also noted that Gaetz voted against the TikTok ban passed in April. The bill, aimed at strengthening national security against China, requires the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. assets by January or risk being banned from app stores.

“Although this law was passed and requires the platform to be sold to a non-Chinese company in January, it is easy to imagine a world in which Attorney General Gaetz does not enforce it,” Kasten told BI in an email.

After the vote, Gaetz said he thought banning TikTok was “the right idea” but took issue with the legislation being “too broad” and “rushed.”

“This is no way to run a railroad (or the Internet),” Gaetz posted on X.

Several of the biggest tech companiesincluding Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon, are already battling antitrust lawsuits filed in recent years.

George Hay, an antitrust expert and law professor at Cornell University, previously told BI that new presidents generally do not change current cases.

“It’s very rare that at the presidential level there is any attempt to influence the course of cases that have already been filed. These have a life of their own,” Hay said. “They depend on the judge, the courts, the lawyers who lead a case. It’s extraordinarily unusual for the administration to become active.”