Google files EU antitrust complaint accusing Microsoft of stifling cloud competition
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Google filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission on Wednesday accusing Microsoft of using unfair licensing contracts to stifle competition in the multibillion-dollar cloud computing industry.
At the heart of Google’s complaint is the allegation that Microsoft uses unfair licensing terms to “lock in” clients and exert control over the cloud market.
Google alleges that Microsoft, through its dominant Windows Server and Microsoft Office products, can make it difficult for its massive roster of clients to use anything but its Azure cloud infrastructure offering.
The internet giant said in its complaint that restrictions contained in Microsoft’s cloud licensing terms makes it harder for customers to move their workloads from Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology to competitors’ clouds, despite there being no technical barriers to doing so.
European businesses and public sector organizations have been forced to pay the firm up to 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) a year in licensing penalties due to restrictions on customers’ ability to switch from one cloud provider to another, Google said, citing a 2023 study by CISPE, a trade body for the cloud computing sector.
The antitrust complaint from Google arrives after CISPE and its members in July agreed a settlement with Microsoft which would see the firm make changes to address competition concerns.
Referring to the CISPE settlement, Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday that it expects the European Commission to dismiss Google’s complaint.
“Microsoft settled amicably similar concerns raised by European cloud providers, even after Google hoped they would keep litigating,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC via email. “Having failed to persuade European companies, we expect Google similarly will fail to persuade the European Commission.”
Microsoft’s cloud ‘tax’ at issue
In a summary of the complaint, Google — which ranks third globally in the cloud computing market behind market leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, respectively — said that Microsoft “harms cybersecurity and undermines innovation.”
According to Google, if a company runs Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity tools and other applications on Google Cloud Platform or other competing clouds, they are effectively required to pay a “tax” in the form of punchy licensing fees to Microsoft.
Google said that Microsoft undermined competition in cloud, and referred to findings of a U.K. Competition and Markets Authority study which determined Microsoft acquired over 60% to 70% of all new British businesses in 2021 and 2022.
Google also suggested that Microsoft’s cloud practices have potentially made businesses more prone to security issues.
In an interview with CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal Wednesday, Amit Zavery, Google Cloud’s head of platform, said Google believes Microsoft is “100%” in violation of EU antitrust rules.
“We would like the cloud market to remain and become very vibrant and open for all the providers including European vendors, vendors like us, AWS and others,” Zavery said.
“Today the restrictions does not allow choice for customers,” Zavery said. “Today the restrictions does not allow choice for customers,” he said, adding that Microsoft included restrictions once it realized the massive commercial potential of the technology.
“So, we would want those restrictions to be removed and allow customers to have and choose whatever cloud provider they think is best for them commercially and technically,” he added.
Zavery told CNBC that if Microsoft makes changes to its cloud licensing terms as a result of its complaint, Google and cloud customers more broadly would be “very happy.”
Following the July settlement agreement with Microsoft, CISPE said the tech giant would work with its members to release an enhanced version of Azure Stack HCI, a cloud infrastructure product, to offer the same features that Microsoft customers using its Azure product currently benefit from.
Google, which is not a CISPE member, said it disagreed with the settlement and chose not to participate in the agreement. Amazon Web Services, which is a CISPE member, and Alibaba‘s cloud unit AliCloud, also chose not to become part of the settlement.
For its part, Microsoft has denied that its cloud practices harm competition. In response to a cloud market study initiated by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority, the firm said that it “firmly believes that the cloud services market is functioning well.”
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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