California Democrat who opposed anti-tech bills is top contender for key role on antitrust subcommittee
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) questions Intelligence Committee Minority Counsel Stephen Castor and Intelligence Committee Majority Counsel Daniel Goldman during House impeachment inquiry hearings before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill December 9, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Doug Mills | Pool | Getty Images
A California lawmaker who has opposed efforts to crack down on the tech industry is the leading contender to become the highest ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.
Rep. Lou Correa, who represents a portion of Southern California, is being discussed as the likely successor to prior Ranking Member David Cicilline, D-R.I., according to four sources who spoke on background about private discussions. Cicilline previously announced he would leave Congress effective June 1.
If Correa ascends to the role, it would represent a stark reversal in attitude at the top of the subcommittee, which just a few years earlier led a massive investigation of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook that found each maintained monopoly power. Under Cicilline, the CEOs of each company faced hours of grilling before the panel. The Judiciary Committee also managed to pass a package of antitrust bills that aimed to rein in the power of the top players in the industry by preventing them from favoring their own products in their marketplaces or by prohibiting the ownership of two businesses that present a conflict of interest.
Things could still change, but Correa is well-positioned based on his seniority. Correa’s team has spoken with Judiciary staff about possible subcommittee priorities, according to a House staffer, and a vote could happen in the next couple of weeks.
A spokesperson for Correa declined to comment.
One senior Democratic aide described the prospect of Correa becoming ranking member as a “great windfall for the tech companies.” If he ascends to the top Democratic role, he would sit beside Chair Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who was chosen over previous ranking member of the panel Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo. Buck has been the top Republican champion of the tech antitrust bills.
While Cicilline and Buck championed bills that sought to crack down on what they saw as unfair practices by Big Tech companies and supported increased funding to antitrust enforcement agencies, Correa opposed the tech antitrust bills and voted against legislation that would raise money for the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division.
Democrats are in the minority in the House, so whoever fills the position won’t get to set the agenda for the subcommittee. But several sources who spoke with CNBC said Correa’s track record suggests tech antitrust would take a back seat for a while in the subcommittee if he gets the nod. Already, the types of bills that advanced out of the Judiciary committee in the summer of 2021 are now being stalled with the help of tech lobbying.
Correa received an endorsement from the Chamber of Commerce in his 2022 campaign. The Chamber has notably opposed progressive action by the FTC and has warned that legislative reforms in the U.S. could undermine the country’s economic security. Since 2018, Correa has received around $17,000 in donations from tech company political action committees, including those of Amazon, Google and Meta.
Correa is unlikely to be a popular choice among progressive groups. Groups like the Demand Progress Education Fund, Economic Security Project Action and Fight for the Future urged the committee in April to select a replacement to Cicilline “with a similarly steadfast commitment to anti-monopoly policies” who voted for all of the bills in the House Judiciary tech antitrust package.
Several senior members of the subcommittee who support tech antitrust reform would have seemed more likely candidates for the top Democratic seat not long ago. But the field is complicated by the fact that many of them already have ranking member positions on other subcommittees they may not wish to give up. That includes the antitrust subcommittee’s former vice chair Joe Neguse, D-Colo., as well as Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., and Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.
Even so, the senior Democratic aide said a focus on tech antitrust issues is not going away entirely, even if they become less of a focus in the House. The aide pointed to ongoing efforts in the White House and enforcement agencies to tackle digital competition issues.
“Those issues are still there,” the aide said. “They’re not going away.”
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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