After what started as a hopeful year for tech policy, the 117th Congress is about to close out its term with many key efforts tabled.
Despite bipartisan support for antitrust reform targeting digital tech giants, a digital privacy framework and new guardrails for kids on the internet, lawmakers headed home without passing the hallmark bills of those issues. And the Senate has yet to vote to confirm the final nominee to fill out the Federal Communications Commission, leaving that agency incomplete for the entirety of the Biden administration so far.
Congress did pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which incentivizes domestic semiconductor manufacturing after shortages highlighted the risks of overseas production. It also included in the year-end spending package a bill that will raise funds for the antitrust agencies by raising merger filing fees on large deals, as well as a measure banning TikTok on government devices in light of national security concerns due to its ownership by a Chinese company.
And even when it comes to many of the bills that remain in limbo, progress this year shows significant headway. That’s the case with privacy legislation, where a bill proposed this year gained bipartisan support, passing out of a House committee with a near-unanimous vote. Still, it lacks the backing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Democratic chair, Maria Cantwell of Washington, which is seen as critical to passing the legislation.
“Any privacy legislation has to be bipartisan,” said Craig Albright, vice president of U.S. government relations for enterprise software industry group BSA. “Senator Cantwell has to be part of the process. There’s no going around her, she will be one of the key leaders. But I think if the House can demonstrate continued progress, I think that that will create more of an environment for the Senate to be able to act.”
Albright added that the House committee leaders who championed the bill, Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., expected to become chair next year under Republican House control, proved with the panel vote “that substantively, you can come up with a bill that has broad bipartisan support.”
“I think that puts this next Congress in a stronger starting position than we’ve had before,” Albright said.
Lawmakers face a tougher landscape next year if they hope to pick up where they left off on tech reform. With Democratic control of the Senate and Republican control of the House in 2023, policy watchers stress that bipartisanship will be essential to make bills into law.
While that might dash hopes for most antitrust reforms, which though bipartisan are not generally supported by Republicans expected to lead the House and key committees, it could mean there’s still a chance for legislation on digital privacy, where both parties have stressed urgency despite years of failing to compromise on areas of disagreement.
Still, lawmakers who led aggressive antitrust proposals and other tech reforms have signaled they’ll continue to fight for those measures next year.
“This is clearly the beginning of this fight and not the end,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., whose bill barring online platforms from favoring their own services on their marketplaces failed to make it into year-end must-pass bills, said in a statement following the release of the spending package text. “I will continue to work across the aisle to protect consumers and strengthen competition.”
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement that while their Kids Online Safety Act, setting new guardrails for sites likely to be accessed by kids, and Open App Markets Act, imposing new regulations on app stores run by Apple and Google, did not make it into the spending bill, they are “resolved to reintroduce and pass this legislation in the next Congress.” The pair blamed the bills’ failure to advance on intense lobbying efforts by the tech industry against them.
A survey of congressional staffers by Punchbowl News found that while a majority of Capitol Hill respondents expect a less productive session in terms of passing meaningful legislation, the tech agenda is high up on the expected list of priorities. Punchbowl said that 56% of respondents anticipated action on bills targeting Big Tech, a percentage that was second only to those who expect to see action targeting inflation.
Tech regulation is Democrats’ top priority, according to Punchbowl, with 59% of respondents choosing it as one of their chief issues. Among lobbyists and business executives surveyed by Punchbowl, 55% predicted lawmakers could crack down on a major tech company, with TikTok coming out as the most likely target, followed by Facebook parent Meta.
And while it’s unlikely to result in new laws, House Republicans have signaled they’ll use their majority to focus on tech issues that have taken a backseat while Democrats held the gavels in both chambers. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who’s expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, signaled he’ll likely use that power to focus on tech companies’ relationships with Democratic politicians and allegations of bias and censorship by social media platforms.
Earlier this month he wrote to the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, demanding information about what he called “the nature and extent of your companies’ collusion with the Biden Administration.” He said the letters should serve as a formal request to preserve records related to the request.
Lawmakers are also likely to spend more time looking at crypto regulation, after the downfall of exchange FTX alleged fraud of its founder Sam Bankman-Fried thrust the industry into the limelight before Congress. Legislators have already considered some legislation targeting the industry, and incoming House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., has indicated that making a clearer regulatory framework for crypto is a priority.
One of the key questions lawmakers have wrestled with is who should be the agency in charge of overseeing the industry. That question has so far gone unanswered, with many industry players advocating for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission while some consumer advocates preferring the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is larger and better resourced. One prominent bipartisan bill in the Senate would put the CFTC in charge.
Just like in 2022, next year’s tech policy agenda will be subject to the whims of Congress, and could be especially susceptible if the country sees some level of economic downturn as many experts expect.
“Everybody has their desire to regulate tech. But I can’t help but wonder what that desire looks like, depending on the economic outlook of the United States in Q1 of 2023,” said James Czerniawski, senior policy analyst for technology and innovation at the Koch-backed advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, pointing to high interest rates and job cuts in the tech sector. “If we were to go and enter into a recession at some point in early next year, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, that might go and rejigger priorities from Congress to more immediate things.”
Czerniawski said the push for regulation in tech seems to be based on an “assumption that tech is this thing that’s just immovable and going to be around for the test of time with these companies’ names attached to it. And, if anything, I think that the past year and change has shown that that’s not necessarily true.”
“I think that it’s pretty easy to beat up on Big Tech when they’re so successful and they’re pulling in record profits,” said Tom Romanoff, director of the technology project at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, which has received funding Amazon and Meta, according to recent donor disclosures. “It becomes a different equation when constituents and districts are upset because they got laid off in one of these very high paying jobs. And so I think if there is an economic downturn, the focus will shift to the economy.”
Romanoff added that certain global dynamics could also shift the focus away from increased tech regulation, such as if tensions escalate between China and Taiwan, where a large portion of semiconductors are currently produced. He said an event like that could cause a shift from an “internal focus of what these large companies mean for U.S. democracy, to kind of a national defense strategy — what does it mean in wartime to regulate an industry that is very much critical to any wartime industry.”
Still, Albright of BSA sees focus on the tech sector in Congress remaining high as concerns that have existed in the past are not going away.
“I think the economy will go up and down,” he said. “But the importance of tech policy issues will still be strong.”
TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.
Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.
TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.
“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”
Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.
“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.
But there may a dark side to this growth.
As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.
“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”
Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.
“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”
Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.
While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.
The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.
Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.
The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.
Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.
The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.
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Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.
“GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”
The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.
Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.
Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.
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Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.
During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.
Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.
Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.
“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.