An "Alternative Acquisition" That Sidestepped Traditional Merger Review
Microsoft’s integration of Suleyman’s Inflection AI did not take the traditional form of directly acquiring the whole company’s equity but was done by paying a licensing fee for the core technology while directly hiring the company’s core team members, an operation that largely sidestepped the antitrust review process a traditional corporate merger usually undergoes, this move provoking wide discussion in the industry over whether there is a regulatory gap in AI-industry merger oversight.