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US senator Bernie Sanders is known as not-exactly-a-friend of highly effective companies: He’s beforehand known as for OpenAI to be damaged up, as an illustration, and earlier this yr introduced a invoice that might pause the development of knowledge facilities within the US, to present lawmakers an opportunity to meet up with, and regulate, AI corporations.
But AI is not Sanders’ solely PC-centric bugaboo: He’s additionally fairly pissed off in regards to the Xbox state of affairs.
“Last year, Microsoft made $101 billion in profits, got a $12.5 billion tax break from Trump and paid its CEO $96 million,” Sanders blasted out on X, not lengthy after the announcement of sweeping layoffs at Xbox.
“This year, it’s raising the price of an Xbox by $150 and eliminating 3,200 jobs. Please don’t tell me corporate tax breaks create jobs. It never trickles down.”
The concern is clearly extra in regards to the deeply unfair and unhealthy oligarchy we’re dwelling in, and never how a lot Sanders has to pay for the following Xbox, however I discover it attention-grabbing that the comparatively mundane dealings of a recreation firm are sufficient to draw the eye of such a high-profile politician.
Of course, this is not ol’ Bernardo’s first little bit of Xbox-related criticism: In 2022, he joined with fellow senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse in calling out Bobby Kotick’s golden parachute following Activision Blizzard’s acquisition by Microsoft.
That, sadly, might lead to a certain amount of cynicism about what Sanders and other lawmakers can actually do here, aside from posting about it. The US Federal Trade Commission actively opposed Activision Blizzard’s buyout, but its efforts to halt the deal, or even just pause it while legal challenges worked their way through the system, were repeatedly thwarted. Former FTC chair Lina Khan, who headed up the agency during the acquisition, pointed out in 2025 that Microsoft’s actions since the merger are pretty much exactly what she tried to warn everyone about.
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