Despite antitrust scrutiny, Big Tech acquisitions are at an all time high

One of the staple parts of most investigations, lawsuits and allegations against Big Tech is that it has been consistently engaging in big time anti-competitive behavior, as the industry's top-tier companies have for years had a habit of gobbling up smaller rivals and startups at an alarming pace.

And even though it seems like this behavior is now under more legislative and legal scrutiny than ever, Refinitiv data shows the practice is far from slowing down.

On the contrary - 2021 has seen Big Tech heavy-hitters acquire more smaller companies than ever before, and more quickly than ever, the study claims. That equals investments of at least $264 billion spent on bringing the competition "into the fold" - i.e., removing them from the scene as rivals.

And since these smaller rivals were truly smaller - all worth under $1 billion, compared to the trillion dollar behemoths who bought them the math to determine the number of companies the likes of Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft have bought so far this year is simple - it's an awful lot.

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