Artificial intelligence is fast becoming the infrastructure of the American economy, and one company is positioning itself to control it. Nvidia already dominates the chips that power AI. In late 2025, it paid $20 billion for access to the technology of Groq, one of the few firms building an alternative, and hired Groq’s top executives without the deal ever being submitted for merger review. Now it wants to buy Hugging Face, the main public hub where American developers, startups, and universities share open-source AI models.
The Justice Department is reportedly asking questions about both deals, and it should. In a letter to the Department, we applaud its scrutiny and urge it to see both reviews through, including by treating licensing deals and acqui-hires that function as acquisitions with the same scrutiny as any other merger. Teddy Roosevelt didn’t bust the trusts so we could let them regrow in AI.
