US FTC To Reportedly Closely Review Big Tech Talent Deals From Startups

According to a Bloomberg report, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is looking to scrutinize the practice of large tech companies hiring startup employees instead of acquiring the company.

• FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the review would be to address the trend of acqui-hires that are seen as a move to dodge antitrust reviews.
• Ferguson said that the Biden administration's aggressive push for antitrust enforcement has prompted the companies to take this workaround. 
• The plans come amid a sleuth of recent partnerships that America’s largest tech companies have made with promising AI startups.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly seeking to scrutinize the practice of large technology companies that hire startup employees instead of acquiring the company.

According to a Bloomberg report, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in an interview that it was a move to address the growing trend of these acqui-hires seen as a move to dodge antitrust reviews.

“We are beginning to examine these acqui-hires to make sure they are not an attempt to get around” the agency’s merger review process, Ferguson said on Bloomberg Television on Friday.

Ferguson said that the Biden administration's aggressive push for antitrust enforcement has prompted the companies to take this workaround.

The AI Startup Talent

The plans come amid a sleuth of recent partnerships that America’s largest tech companies have made with promising AI startups.

In December, Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) tapped AI chip startup Groq’s founder Jonathan Ross, in a non-exclusive chip technology licensing deal that also onboarded the founder as a Chief Software Architect at the company.

Similarly, Alphabet Inc.’s (GOOG) Google purchased the license to AI coding startup Windsurf in 2025, hired its CEO and some employees without taking a stake in the firm.

Meta Platforms (META) also took a 49% stake in startup Scale AI last year, with CEO Alexandr Wang taking a key position in the company’s superintelligence lab.

Market Reaction

On the markets’ side, U.S. equities ended Friday’s session in red. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, closed 0.08% lower, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 ended the day down by 0.07%. Retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF on Stocktwits was in the ‘neutral’ territory.

Meanwhile, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) declined 0.12%, and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) lost 0.18%. The 
iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) ended the session 1.56% higher on Friday.

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