EU Commissioner Vestager may act if Microsoft poaching Inflection employees is sign of broader trend – April 3, 2024 at 6:57 PM EDT

European Union regulators have noted that Microsoft has seized most of the AI ​​startup's employees, including the co-founders of Inflection. They can act if other companies behave similarly, and this will become a trend, European Union Antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said on Wednesday.

Microsoft last month hired co-founders Mustafa Suleiman and Karen Simonyan, as well as most of Inflection's 70-person team, to a newly created unit called Microsoft AI, as the US software giant works to unify and expand its AI offerings for consumer products.

The move drew criticism from competitors because the transfer of talent and technology allowed Microsoft to avoid the regulatory scrutiny associated with a traditional acquisition.

Vestager said she was following developments.

“This is something we are monitoring, but as you said, it is not a merger that falls outside the merger rules,” she told reporters.

“We can look at it, but we haven't made any decisions to do anything or not do anything. We've registered that this is happening and we've also registered that it's happening in a way worthy of our usual scrutiny boxes.” He said.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Vestager added that there may be concerns if other companies follow suit.

“If things develop into a trend, and if that trend looks like something that circumvents what was put in place to protect competition, which is the merger rules, then of course it is possible to recover that and eventually correct it,” Vestager said. (Reporting by Fu Yunqi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)