Google CEO Sundar Pichai (L), and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
Reuters
Google is headed back to court for its second antitrust trial in two months, this time in defense of its Android Play Store.
While Google continues to argue against monopoly claims brought by the Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of states in Washington, D.C., District Court, the company now has to simultaneously face off against Epic Games in a federal court in San Francisco.
The trial involving Epic, which begins Monday, revolves around Google’s treatment of third-party mobile developers, and will be closely watched by Apple, which operates the rival iPhone App Store. Both companies have been accused by developers of taking an unfair cut of revenue from in-app payments and for making it harder for app creators to communicate with their customers.
An Epic victory could force Google to make changes to Android, where it charges a 15% to 30% fee on digital goods and services purchased within apps. It could allow Epic to get its store pre-installed on devices, potentially making it easier for users to bypass Google’s store to download games.
The dispute stemmed from an incident in August 2020, when Epic pushed updates to its game Fortnite that allowed the company to bill its customers directly for in-app purchases, instead of through app stores.
Google and Apple swiftly kicked Fortnite off their stores. Epic sued both companies, seeking to allow direct billing and the unfettered ability to install the Epic store on smartphones.
Epic’s suit against Apple went to trial in 2021 and was appealed earlier this year. Epic lost on nine out of 10 counts, but could win one concession around emailing customers, depending on whether the Supreme Court decides to take up its case against Apple.
Fortnite V-Bucks are offered for sale at a video game retailer on December 19, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Meanwhile, Google still has to deal with the government.
At issue in the DOJ’s monopoly case, which went to trial in September, is whether Google violated the law through exclusive agreements with mobile phone manufacturers and browser makers to make its search engine the default for consumers. That case could determine whether Google is able to continue using its heft to keep its prime positioning on smartphones.
A separate DOJ antitrust trial is slated to kick off in Virginia early next year. That case is focused on Google’s online advertising business and aims to force the company into some divestitures.
For the Epic suit, there’s one key difference between what Google faces and the case against Apple. Google allows “sideloading,” or the ability to install software off the web, which Apple forbids.
Epic plans to argue that, even with that capability, Google abuses its dominant market position and makes it hard for consumers to get access to apps, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In particular, Epic plans to call attention to Google’s contracts with handset makers that prevent the installation of alternative app stores, as well as other contracts with app developers that preclude them from launching a competing app store, said the person, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely on the plans.
Epic’s argument would point to violations by Google of both federal competition laws and California laws related to restraining trade. Epic will also likely highlight how many steps and taps it takes to sideload an app on an Android device.
For Google, the case largely revolves around its ability to show that these are the costs of doing business. The company will argue that it charges a reasonable rate and an amount that’s required so it can run a popular marketplace that developers count on to reach users.
“The truth is that Epic simply wants all the benefits that Android and Google Play provide without having to pay for them,” Wilson White, Google’s vice president of public policy and government affairs, wrote in a blog post previewing the company’s defense.
Google claims the fees it charges developers are some of the lowest among major app stores, and says 99% of the developers selling digital content are charged a fee of 15% or less.
Google can look to the outcome of Epic’s litigation against Apple for instruction. Wilson told reporters in a briefing that the judge in Apple’s case acknowledged the company competes with Google, and said the appeals court held that it’s lawful for Apple to require developers to use its billing system.
Witnesses expected to testify include Google CEO Sundar Pichai as well key Android executives and representatives from Google partners like Apple and Netflix, according to White.
Match Group on Tuesday said it had settled its claims over Google’s Play Store. After that news came out, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney refused to back down, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, that, “Epic will go to trial against Google alone.”
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)
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
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.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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.