Former U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at Google, accusing the search engine of being “rigged.” In an interview with Bloomberg’s editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, Trump revealed he had recently called Google CEO Sundar Pichai to complain about only negative stories about him appearing in search results, despite having positive coverage as well.
“I called the head of Google the other day and said, ‘I’m getting a lot of good stories lately, but you don’t see them on Google,'” Trump shared. According to him, Pichai responded, saying Trump was “the No. 1 person on all of Google for stories.”
When asked if Google should be broken up, Trump said, “Yeah, look, Google’s got a lot of power. They’re very bad to me… you only see the 20 bad stories. I think it’s a whole rigged deal. Google’s rigged, just like our government is rigged.”
Trump, while not a fan of the company, warned against destroying Google, stating, “What you can do, without breaking it up, is make sure it’s more fair. They do treat me very badly, but we want great companies like this, not China.”
He also credited Google’s power but expressed concerns, adding, “Right now, China is afraid of Google.”
On TikTok, Trump remarked, “I think everything is a threat… Sometimes you have to fight through the threats.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice is considering breaking up Google after an August ruling declared the company acted as a monopoly in its search business.
