Chamath’s prediction that the largest U.S. tech firms would face much stronger government headwinds—more regulation, higher taxation, and constraints on their operations, with breakup risk at the extreme—has broadly played out since 2020, even though no company has actually been broken up.

Antitrust and regulatory pressure dramatically increased. Since 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice and state AGs have brought multiple landmark antitrust cases against Google (search and ad-tech), winning liability rulings that Google illegally monopolized both search and key ad-tech markets, with structural remedies (including potential divestitures) on the table. (en.wikipedia.org) The FTC’s ongoing case against Meta over Instagram and WhatsApp could force divestitures, and is now at trial, explicitly raising the prospect of unwinding those acquisitions. (en.wikipedia.org) The DOJ and several states sued Apple in 2024, alleging it illegally monopolizes smartphone markets and stating that structural breakup remedies are possible, again signaling serious breakup risk even if no breakup has yet occurred. (cnbc.com) The FTC has also filed a major monopolization suit against Amazon and separately extracted a record $2.5 billion settlement (including a $1 billion civil penalty) over Prime “dark patterns,” illustrating an aggressive enforcement stance. (ftc.gov) In parallel, the Biden administration issued Executive Order 14036 to launch a “whole-of-government” competition policy, and its antitrust leaders (Lina Khan at the FTC, Jonathan Kanter at DOJ) are widely described as having “reinvigorated” antitrust enforcement, bringing high-profile cases against Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and others at a pace not seen in decades. (en.wikipedia.org)

Regulation and compliance burdens on Big Tech increased sharply. At the U.S. state level, a growing patchwork of comprehensive privacy laws (California’s CCPA/CPRA plus Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon and others) now impose stricter data-collection, consent, and consumer-rights rules on large data-driven companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, raising compliance costs and constraining data use compared to the pre‑2020 environment. (jdsupra.com) Internationally, the EU’s Digital Markets Act formally designated Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft as “gatekeepers” subject to far-reaching obligations on self‑preferencing, app stores, interoperability, and data use; the Commission has already opened non‑compliance investigations into Alphabet, Apple and Meta that could force major product and business‑model changes. (euronews.com) These measures have not stopped these companies from growing, but they clearly represent the sort of regulatory headwinds and operational constraints Chamath described.

Taxation and financial penalties have also become more punitive. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 introduced a 15% corporate minimum tax on large corporations with over $1 billion in profits, directly targeting the roughly 200 largest companies—including the biggest tech firms—that had often paid effective rates below 15%; this is explicitly framed as closing loopholes and raising their tax burden relative to the prior regime. (forbes.com) In addition, Big Tech firms have faced escalating fines and monetary remedies: for example, the EU levied a multibillion‑dollar antitrust fine on Google’s ad‑tech business with the possibility of structural remedies if Google does not adequately change its conduct, and the FTC’s $2.5 billion Amazon settlement is its largest civil penalty ever. (apnews.com) These developments fall squarely within Chamath’s “regulated, overtaxed and slowed down at a minimum” scenario. While the extreme outcome of actual breakups has not (yet) occurred, the substantial increase in antitrust litigation, regulation, compliance burden, and effective tax pressure on the largest U.S. tech companies means the core directional claim of his prediction has been borne out.