AI First, Reality Last: Microsoft Antitrust Case

Microsoft's generative AI direction is entirely detached from reality, and the financial gravity of their decisions is finally starting to bite them. The company is actively executing mass firings while simultaneously generating PR headlines about dumping billions more into the AI money pit. Think about the sheer scale of this waste. This is a tech giant spending upwards of $35 billion a quarter on capital expenditures, primarily for Nvidia chips and data centres, totalling $140 billion annually. Yet, their actual AI revenue sits at a mere $13 billion run rate.

All they have to show for this deficit is an OpenAI partnership that incinerates cash and a flagship tool in Copilot that reportedly even their own internal staff avoid using because it is incredibly clunky. There is absolutely no organic market demand that will magically bridge a $127 billion gap to cover the astronomical costs of hardware and power consumption. Microsoft knows this, which is exactly why they are panicking.

A global antitrust crackdown buried by the algorithm:

You have likely missed the biggest tech story of the year. I am almost certain Microsoft's PR machine has been actively suppressing this in the social media algorithms, because I only stumbled across it by pure accident today. A massive, globally coordinated antitrust operation is currently dismantling their business model.

Just this month, the US Federal Trade Commission drastically escalated its case against Microsoft. The tech giant arrogantly assumed that a new Trump administration would automatically hand them a free pass under the guise of national security. They completely miscalculated the political climate. The populist wing of the current administration holds a massive grudge against Big Tech monopolies, and they are letting FTC Chair Andrew N. Ferguson take the gloves off.

This probe extends far beyond US borders. Just a few days ago on 25 February 2026, the Japan Fair Trade Commission physically raided Microsoft's Tokyo headquarters. Regulators on four different continents are simultaneously knocking down their doors, completely unmasking the facade that everything is going perfectly for the company.

The staggering arrogance of the 2026 price hikes:

Because their GenAI products cannot survive on their own merit, Microsoft is using their absolute monopoly in the enterprise software space to artificially force AI and cloud services down everyone's throats.

Since they cannot convince businesses to willingly buy expensive Copilot subscriptions, they are resorting to brutal corporate extortion. If a business wants to run essential software like Windows Server on a rival cloud platform like Amazon AWS or Google Cloud, Microsoft makes it technically miserable or slaps them with a massive 400% markup. In the UK alone, Microsoft is currently facing a £2.1 billion class action lawsuit for allegedly overcharging nearly 60,000 businesses simply for using competing cloud infrastructure.

The sheer arrogance of their strategy is mind boggling. In December 2025, right in the middle of that exact UK tribunal, Microsoft officially announced massive global price hikes for July 2026. By removing volume discounts, they are forcing an effective 20% price increase on major enterprise customers. They are openly telling the corporate world they have to foot the bill for unwanted GenAI features, proving to regulators that they operate a captive market.

The DMA and DMCCA will absolutely crush their stall tactics:

Usually, a company of this size would just pay a fine and legally stall the regulators for a decade. Microsoft is attempting to run a purely American legal playbook in a European regulatory environment. In the US courts, corporate lawyers can stall indefinitely by arguing over technical loopholes and the strict, literal text of a ruling. European courts, however, judge based on the spirit and purpose of the law.

The European Union and the UK have enacted bespoke legislation specifically coded to ruthlessly kill the old Big Tech stalling playbook. Under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA), the laws are ex-ante. The burden of proof is entirely on Microsoft.

Crucially, the EU has already learned from Microsoft's previous antics. In late 2025, Microsoft offered binding commitments to unbundle Teams to dodge a massive antitrust fine. They then executed a fake unbundling. They quietly removed enterprise volume discounts, meaning companies that dropped Teams still faced a 15% base price increase for their remaining software.

To counter this exact pricing illusion with Copilot, the EU launched a massive qualitative market investigation in November 2025 to officially designate Azure itself as a Gatekeeper. By targeting the server infrastructure directly, this legally forces Microsoft to offer Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) pricing and mandates free, real-time data portability. They cannot trap customers with egress fees.

The UK is following suit. The newly restructured Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) desperately wants to project a pro-investment stance to appease Silicon Valley. However, they are trapped by their own research. The CMA recently conducted a massive audit of the cloud market and published undeniable evidence that Microsoft and Amazon hold significant unilateral market power. Even a friendly UK government cannot pretend to ignore the truth of their own public studies, forcing them to move forward with Strategic Market Status designations.

If Microsoft tries their usual trick of malicious compliance, the financial threat is entirely existential. Regulators can legally calculate fines based on 10% to 20% of total global turnover. If Microsoft refuses to unbundle their software fairly, the EU holds the explicit power to levy daily penalties of up to 5% of their average daily worldwide turnover. For Microsoft, that equals over $33 million evaporating every single day they refuse to comply.

The dead geopolitical shield and weaponised rivals:

Microsoft completely deluded themselves into thinking they were too big to fine. They believed they could play the geopolitical card and threaten to pull data centres or withhold government security updates if Europe pushed too hard.

Brussels absolutely does not care who you are. The EU happily crushed Meta when they threatened to pull Facebook from Europe, and they forced Apple to completely rewrite its App Store rules. In the current global climate, everyday citizens and lawmakers care even less about protecting the profit margins of a trillion dollar American tech monopoly.

Furthermore, Microsoft cannot bully their way out of this case because their biggest competitors are actively funding the legal fight against them. Tech giants like Google and massive lobbying groups like NetChoice are weaponising antitrust law to hit Microsoft where it hurts. Granted, none of these rival corporations are exactly the good guys, but in this specific scenario, their corporate warfare is actually working to the benefit of regular consumers who are completely sick of being squeezed.