Summary The prediction overstated both the scale and the persistence of any antitrust‑driven pullback. There is evidence of some regulatory “chill” on certain startup deals and a temporary dip in Big Tech startup acquisitions around 2023, but acquisition activity by the major platforms did not stay substantially reduced, nor did Silicon Valley suffer the kind of sustained, regulation‑driven “disaster” implied.

1. Did the major platforms “substantially reduce” acquisition activity?

Immediate and medium‑term behavior (2020–2022) contradicts a sharp pullback:

• Post‑hearing, Big Tech continued to pursue very large deals. Examples include Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard for ~$69B (announced 2022, closed 2023) and other mega‑deals that required intensive regulatory review but still went through.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Sector‑wide, 2021–2022 were boom years for tech M&A overall; PwC/Dealogic data show that $500M+ tech, media & telecom deals were actually more numerous under Biden than under Trump, and median time to close rose by only one day (76→77 days), indicating no broad freeze in large deals.(theregister.com)

There was a notable dip around 2023, but it was not permanent and had broader causes:

• Global TMT M&A value fell 46% and deal volume 26% in 2023 vs 2022, driven largely by higher interest rates and weaker growth, with regulatory scrutiny cited as one of several contributing factors.(verdict.co.uk)
• A Crunchbase analysis in mid‑2023 found that the five most valuable U.S. tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia) had made just five known startup acquisitions year‑to‑date, putting 2023 on pace for the smallest number of startup acquisitions in years.(news.crunchbase.com) This supports a temporary reduction, especially for small startup deals.

But by 2024–2025, Big Tech was again very active in M&A:

• One 2024 summary estimated that the five major tech firms collectively spent over $127B on acquisitions and strategic investments in 2024, a ~340% increase over pre‑pandemic levels, with 73% of that focused on AI‑related technologies.(konceptual.ai)
• Alphabet/Google went on to announce its largest acquisition ever—the $32B purchase of Wiz in 2025—after an earlier attempt at a ~$23B deal was shelved due to antitrust concerns, showing that even intense scrutiny did not stop it from pursuing huge M&A.(reuters.com)

Taken together, this is inconsistent with the claim that the major platforms, in general, would sustainably reduce acquisitions. There was a cyclical slump and some hesitation around certain contested deals, but not a lasting withdrawal from M&A.

2. Was there a “sustained chilling effect” on M&A that harmed the startup ecosystem via fewer acquisition exits?

Evidence that antitrust policy increased friction and chilled some startup deals:

• Legal and academic analyses document that, under Lina Khan (FTC) and Jonathan Kanter (DOJ), challenges to startup acquisitions rose sharply: only three startup acquisitions were challenged between 2012–2019 vs fourteen between 2020–2023. High‑profile cases or threats of suit led parties to abandon deals like Adobe/Figma, Qualcomm/Autotalks, Sanofi/Maze—and an earlier Google/Wiz attempt. These analyses explicitly describe a “chilling effect” spreading across Silicon Valley, making acquisitions by large incumbents riskier and less attractive as an exit path.(corpgov.law.harvard.edu)
• A related NYU‑Law–based policy piece similarly argues that expanded merger review and higher uncertainty have made acquisitions more costly, lengthier, and less appealing, and warns that this can reduce capital flowing into the startup sector by weakening M&A as an exit option.(pulseforinnovation.org)

But the broader startup‑exit slump has larger macro causes and isn’t uniquely driven by Big Tech pullback:

• PitchBook data cited by Reuters show that global VC exit value in 2023 fell to a six‑year low ($234.3B), with U.S. VC exits at their weakest since 2016, reflecting high interest rates, a frozen IPO market, and risk‑off investor sentiment.(reuters.com) These macro factors affected all exit routes, not just Big Tech acquisitions.
• At the same time, FTC statistics and subsequent commentary indicate that the share of deals receiving intensive merger scrutiny (second requests) has stayed around 1–2% over the last decade, and that the perception of a broadly hyper‑aggressive FTC is driven by a few very high‑profile cases rather than a systemic clampdown on most deals.(forbes.com)

So while there is credible evidence of a non‑trivial antitrust‑driven chill on some startup M&A—especially high‑profile or strategically sensitive deals—the data do not support the prediction of a broad, sustained collapse of acquisition exits uniquely attributable to the 2020 antitrust push.

3. Overall assessment relative to Sacks’s prediction

Sacks predicted that the July 2020 House antitrust hearings would cause the big platforms to systematically second‑guess “every acquisition,” triggering a lasting chill in M&A and a “disaster” for the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem via fewer acquisition exits.

What actually happened:

• Big Tech continued to do major acquisitions in 2020–2022 and then resumed very large and numerous deals again by 2024–2025, including record‑setting transactions. There was a dip in small/startup acquisitions around 2023, but it was not permanent, nor did Big Tech exit the M&A market.(verdict.co.uk)
• Startup exits (IPOs + M&A) did fall sharply in 2022–2023, but largely in tandem with rising rates and a depressed IPO market. Antitrust policy contributed to the difficulty of some specific deals and created real uncertainty, yet the overall pattern of exits is better explained by a broad funding and macro downturn than by a Big Tech acquisition strike alone.(reuters.com)

Because Big Tech did not maintain a long‑term, across‑the‑board reduction in acquisitions, and because the startup ecosystem’s challenges cannot be cleanly or primarily attributed to that kind of M&A freeze, the core prediction—of a sustained, regulation‑driven collapse in platform acquisitions that would be a “disaster for Silicon Valley”—has not clearly materialized.

Hence the prediction is best classified as wrong, albeit with a kernel of truth that antitrust developments did create some localized chilling effects on specific startup deals and contributed at the margin to a more challenging exit environment.