Antitrust enforcers with the Federal Trade Commission have opened a wide-ranging investigation into Microsoft’s business practices, starting a big legal project that an incoming Trump administration must take up or abandon.
The FTC is investigating Microsoft’s cloud computing business and related product lines such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, according to a person who was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
It’s the latest action of more than three years of aggressive antitrust enforcement shepherded by FTC Chair Lina Khan, who was elevated to lead the agency by President Joe Biden after he came into office pledging tougher scrutiny of monopolistic behavior by Big Tech companies.
Khan’s FTC already lost one antitrust fight with Microsoft last year when a federal judge declined to block its $69 billion takeover of video game company Activision Blizzard.
This case would go deeper into the core of Microsoft’s business in …