And it was put to the CEOs of Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Facebook (full board) and Google (GOOGL) by Rep. Greg Steube, more than four hours after Wednesday’s five-and-a-half-hour congressional antitrust hearing.
The responses were somewhat varied.
“I don’t know of specific cases where the government has robbed us,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “I don’t know of any case [of] ours where it happened … I can only speak with first-hand knowledge, “he added.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai initially followed suit.
“I have no first-hand knowledge of any stolen information from Google in this regard,” he said. (Pichai then issued a correction, acknowledging a China-linked cyber attack on Google in 2009 in which the company said part of its intellectual property was stolen.)
Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the world’s richest man, said he had “heard many reports of that,” although he added, “I have not personally seen it.”
Mark Zuckerberg was much more unequivocal.
“I think it is well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from American companies,” said the Facebook CEO.
Steube’s question is enormously important in the United States. The issue of intellectual property theft is central to the geopolitical dispute between the United States and China, and the protection of intellectual property has been one of Washington’s main demands during the trade war.
The United States has long said that theft of intellectual property has cost the American economy billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs. Meanwhile, Chinese officials have repeatedly rejected accusations that foreign companies are treated unfairly, arguing that any technology secrets released were part of mutually agreed-upon agreements.
Zuckerberg’s comment, meanwhile, marked a noticeable change in tone for one of America’s top technology executives. In previous years, Facebook’s CEO has made many proposals to the Chinese government, which at the time generated widespread criticism.
On Wednesday, portraying Facebook as an American champion against China’s tech industry was a key part of Zuckerberg’s testimony.
“If you look at where the top tech companies come from, a decade ago the vast majority were Americans,” said Facebook’s CEO. “Today almost half are Chinese.”
The Trump administration has already largely blocked Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from working with US providers, and says it is “looking” to ban the very popular short-form video app TikTok. Zuckerberg tagged the app on Wednesday, which is owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, one of Facebook’s top competitors.
But when Steube followed up on his initial question by asking for recommendations on how Congress could “better protect” American companies from “aggression and government intervention abroad” in places like China and Europe, neither Zuckerberg nor any of his peers they had an answer.
Steube waited about 15 seconds of awkward silence before dedicating the rest of his time.
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