Google might lose its $26 billion search deals. Analysts say that could fuel its AI growth
Any day now, a federal judge is expected to issue a landmark ruling that could upend some of the most lucrative deals in Silicon Valley: Google’s default search contracts.
At stake is more than $26 billion a year, $20 billion of which goes to Apple. That’s nearly a quarter of Alphabet’s operating income.
For decades, the Apple-Google pact has helped determine who controls the internet, which is exactly why it’s now in the crosshairs.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Google held a monopoly in search and ads. He’s been weighing remedies since the final phase of the trial wrapped in May, with a separate case on Google’s ad business set to begin next month under a different judge.
While Google risks losing some search traffic and predictability, analysts say Apple could take a bigger financial hit. The impact will hinge on whether Apple lines up new deals and how broadly the ruling applies.
Jefferies analysts say the judge may block exclusive contracts but still allow some payments. Even so, Apple’s pre-tax profits could drop by as much as 7%.
Some economists and Wall Street analysts believe Google might come out ahead in the long run — freed from costly deals that no longer drive demand.
Searching for competition
Barclays analysts said in an August 5 note that if Google were to unwind the payments and contracts, it would still be “nearly impossible” for smaller peers to compete.
Megacap rival Microsoft has poured $100 billion into Bing and hasn’t been able to catch Google’s Chrome.
Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue testified during the antitrust trial that no price Microsoft could offer would be enough to justify switching to Bing, because Google delivered stronger results and a better monetization engine.
“I don’t believe there’s a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us. They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company,” Cue said.
Apple executives contend that it’s easy for users to switch search engines. Currently, Apple allows Americans to switch to Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia as their default search engine, but few do.
“I think their search engine is the best,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said about Google in 2018.
Economist Lones Smith, who modeled how people decide which search engine to use, described the phenomenon as a natural monopoly, where scale breeds quality, and quality reinforces scale.
“I don’t understand this deal it has with Apple, because if they didn’t pay Apple $20 billion, do they think that people would really be using another search engine? I don’t see that,” Smith told CNBC.
Smith likened Google to a utility: Breaking it up makes little economic sense.
“How do we get our water, electrical, and all that? We have a regulated monopoly. We don’t go and break it up,” he said. “We understand that there’s an efficient outcome for society, and we just don’t want the water company to be exploiting us.”
From a pure economics perspective, some on Wall Street would argue that the payments look like unnecessary insurance and that Google’s dominance is sticky enough without them.
Data suggests users opt for Google even when there is a choice.
In Europe, where regulators forced users to pick their own default after a European Commission ruling against Google, the company’s market share barely budged, with StatCounter data showing it still hovers around 90%.
Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, told CNBC that while Europe proves Google can thrive without these payments, the U.S. market moves faster, and what’s next matters more than what’s lost.
“Google to me, quite honestly, once this is done … next year, if they continue down this path, it could be one of the best-performing stocks out there,” Niles said.
Even Google’s proposed remedy points in that direction, allowing shorter default contracts and multiple providers instead of blanket exclusivity, while warning that the bigger risk comes from the DOJ’s push for search data-sharing.
The decision
Former FTC Chair William Kovacic told CNBC that the Justice Department is essentially betting that limiting Google’s exclusivity deals will open the door for new competitors to emerge.
“In part, it’s an act of faith,” he said, though past cases have shown that once barriers are removed, innovation often follows in unexpected ways.
Rebecca Allensworth, a scholar of antitrust and Big Tech, said the payments aren’t necessarily what keep people using Google and likened it to “innovation insurance,” freezing the ecosystem so that rivals don’t have a chance to compete.
“Google fought really, really hard to be able to make those payments,” said Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt. “It makes the industry innovation-proof, in a way. Or at least, if there’s going to be innovation, it’s going to be by and for the benefit of Google.”
Kovacic warned that a Chrome divestiture — one of the more extreme remedies floated — might be more symbolic than effective, calling it “a flashy, shiny object” that wouldn’t do much to solve the issue.
“The big breakup has always been antitrust fascination,” he said. “But you can wonder whether that distracts you from solutions that have more to do with solving the competitive problem that you’ve identified today.”
The DOJ, concerned that Google could repeat its playbook with its artificial intelligence platform Gemini, is also pushing for restrictions on exclusive AI distribution deals — and even proposing data-sharing mandates.
These would force Google to give rivals access to anonymized data about what users search for and which results they click.
But Allensworth emphasized that it’s not a zero-sum game.
“You can have a very strong antitrust remedy … and then two, five, ten years later, that company is actually doing extremely well,” she said. “These are not existential threats to the company.”
AI opportunity
Since 2003 — before the iPhone or Chrome existed — Google’s default search deals with Apple have helped shape the internet. In 2017, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Cook were spotted sipping red wine at Tamarine, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant in Palo Alto, while their teams finalized one of the most lucrative arrangements in tech: keeping Google the default on Apple devices.
Eight years later, the same two CEOs are still at the helm — but the dynamics have changed. A new era of search is emerging, driven not by contracts, but by generative AI.
Wall Street analysts have considered the upside if Google stopped writing Apple a $20 billion check and redirected that money into AI and cloud, lifting profits while keeping its dominance intact.
“Let’s then assume that Google is limited from paying for search distribution deals, and others can leverage Google’s search tech stack, then what other properties can Google prioritize that may fall outside the scope of these cases?” mused Bernstein analysts in April. “Gemini.”
Niles said that with Gemini the company has a chance to shift from being seen as lagging in AI to potentially offering the strongest product on the market, a change already showing up in benchmark tests.
Pichai said during the trial that he spoke to Cook about adding Gemini to Apple devices but that integration hasn’t yet materialized.
In June 2024, Apple announced the integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at WWDC. Apple’s Cue testified that other AI services like Perplexity and Anthropic could also be added to Safari as options.
But neither can touch Google’s scale.
Perplexity reportedly handles 15 million queries per day, compared to Google’s 10 billion.
And Pichai said Google isn’t standing still, testifying in April that AI will “deeply transform” search. Whether that transformation cements Google’s dominance or finally opens the door to rivals is the real test now.
WATCH: Alphabet hits intraday record high on $10B Meta cloud deal, Apple Gemini talks
Tesla has quietly expanded its new MultiPass feature to more regions across Europe, allowing owners to charge at third-party stations directly through their Tesla account — no separate app, card, or registration required.
The feature, which first launched in the Netherlands earlier this year, is now rolling out to additional countries, including Germany and France, according to Tesla’s own support page. The update builds on Tesla’s push to make charging as frictionless as possible — not just at Superchargers, but across an entire network of compatible public chargers.
What is Tesla MultiPass?
Tesla describes MultiPass as a “seamless charging option” that lets drivers find and charge at third-party charging stations using their existing Tesla Account. By partnering with a network aggregator, Tesla now connects to over 1,000 charging networks and thousands of stations across Europe.
In practice, MultiPass aims to make the charging experience at third-party stations as close to a Tesla Supercharger as possible — you can simply tap your Tesla key card or select the stall in your Tesla app at a supported charger, and the cost of the session is automatically billed to your Tesla account. The same payment method used for Supercharging applies, and sessions appear right in your Tesla app’s charging history, unified with your Supercharger activity.
Tesla’s goal is to reduce the number of sign-ups and third-party accounts you need to charge outside of Tesla’s own network. MultiPass turns the Tesla key card into a universal charging credential.
Tesla owners simply need to activate MultiPass through the Tesla app:
- Open the Tesla app and check “Messages” for the MultiPass invitation
- Tap Learn More → Next
- Follow on-screen steps to activate your key card via NFC
Once activated, you can start charging sessions in two ways:
- Tap your key card directly on the supported third-party charger
- Or, start the session in the Tesla app, selecting the stall remotely
Your session appears instantly in the app, complete with cost and time details, just like any Tesla Supercharger session.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla already operates the world’s most reliable and extensive DC fast-charging network. Supercharger is probably the best thing Tesla has ever done.
But outside of the Supercharger footprint, especially in Europe’s dense urban areas, third-party chargers fill critical gaps.
MultiPass eliminates one of the last friction points for Tesla drivers to use these third-party charging stations.
It looks like after a short testing phase in the Netherlands, Tesla is now ready to expand access throughout Europe.
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Environment
It seems like Elon Musk stoking a civil war in England isn’t good for Tesla’s sales there
Tesla’s EV registrations in the UK, its biggest market in Europe, took a dramatic hit in October 2025 — just 511 units — marking one of the brand’s weakest showings in recent memory. That’s a steep drop from 971 in October 2024 and 2,677 in October 2023. The tone of the market is shifting.
Maybe Tesla’s CEO stoking a civil war in England isn’t helping the automaker’s demand in the important market.
Tesla’s sales have been struggling in Europe over the past two years, and the decline has been accelerating in 2025.
While some believed that things were stabilizing for the American automaker in Europe, the October data tells a different story. Tesla had its worst month of deliveries of the year in 12 of its 15 biggest European markets.
As Tesla sales in Germany crashed over the last year, partly because Tesla CEO Elon Musk supported the far-right AfD party, the UK became Tesla’s biggest market in Europe.
But now it looks like the UK is going in the same direction.
According to registration data, Tesla delivered only 511 vehicles in the UK in October 2025. Tesla has over 50 stores in the country – that’s an average of roughly 10 vehicles per location for the whole month.
It’s the worst monthly performance since October 2022.
Much as Tesla’s demand crashed in Germany, Elon Musk’s politics might be behind the lower demand in the UK.
The CEO regularly comments on UK politics and often shares inflammatory reports about crimes perpetrated by immigrants. He also shares misleading crime and immigration statistics aimed at spreading hatred.
After he tweeted that “Civil war is inevitable. Just a question of when.”, he was accused of stoking a civil war in the country.
Musk’s public commentary on UK topics has sparked backlash and resulted in his “unfavorability rating” reaching 80% in the country.
Electrek’s Take
Meanwhile, Tesla’s demand cliff is opening the door to competitors. BYD is now expected to outsell Tesla in the whole year of 2025 in the UK despite Tesla having a presence in the market for much longer.
Not many industry watchers thought it would happen this fast.
Tesla appears to be completely missing out on the surge of EV sales in Europe due to a mix of having a stagnant EV lineup, brand problems brought on by a controversial CEO, and increased competition.
In the US, Musk is believed to have cost Tesla about 1 million sales over the last 3 years.
I think it will soon be approaching this number in Europe.
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Rondo Energy and energy producer EDP are installing a massive 100 MWh renewable-powered heat battery at HEINEKEN’s brewery in Lisbon, Portugal. The project will deliver round-the-clock renewable steam and reduce emissions without altering the facility’s beer brewing process.
Brewing HEINEKEN with zero-carbon steam
The Rondo Heat Battery (RHB) will be the biggest deployed in the beverage industry worldwide. It can store electricity as high-temperature heat using refractory bricks, then convert that heat into 24/7 steam, all without burning fossil fuels.
At HEINEKEN’s Central de Cervejas e Bebidas Brewery and Malting Plant, the heat battery system will supply 7 MW of steam, powered by renewable electricity from onsite solar and the grid. That steam is identical to steam created by gas-fired boilers, but without the carbon pollution.
EDP is providing the renewable electricity and will deliver the steam directly to HEINEKEN via a Heat-as-a-Service model. Rondo is supplying the battery, and HEINEKEN gets to ditch fossil fuels without retooling its brewing process.
Why this matters
This project is a big win for industrial decarbonization. High-temperature steam is one of the most complex parts of manufacturing to electrify, and the beer industry runs on it. HEINEKEN’s Lisbon site already uses solar panels for electricity and electric heat pumps for hot water, and this move helps it go even further.
It’s part of HEINEKEN’s “Brew a Better World” plan to hit net zero emissions by 2040 and decarbonize all of its global production sites by 2030.
Additionally, the deployment aligns with Portugal’s national target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030.
The bigger picture
With the European Investment Bank and Breakthrough Energy Catalyst backing this and other Rondo projects with €75 million in funding, this Lisbon installation is just the beginning. Rondo’s technology enables energy-hungry industries to switch from fossil fuels to renewable electricity without compromising 24/7 operations.
Rondo CEO Eric Trusiewicz sums it up: “We are thrilled to be installing our first Rondo Heat Battery in Iberia, and to support HEINEKEN to reach its goals. We look forward to helping industries across Iberia cut costs and carbon, and help Iberia capitalize on the opportunity.”
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