Testifying under oath is a task that many tech chief executives might be asked to do in the coming years, with Amazon, Meta and others facing their own antitrust court fights. Though he was never called to the witness stand to testify, Bill Gates, who was chief executive of Microsoft in the last big technology antitrust case brought by the Justice Department more than two decades ago, came across as combative and evasive in depositions. Mr. Zuckerberg has at times exasperated lawmakers with vague responses, while Mr. Altman appeared to charm senators in a hearing this year. The main duty on the witness stand for Mr. Pichai — a low-key and detail-focused executive — has been to keep the temperature low under questioning and keep to the central point of Google’s antitrust defense: that it is an innovative company that has maintained its leadership through innovation and hard work instead of illegal monopolistic behavior. The Justice Department filed its landmark antitrust suit against Google in October 2020, arguing that the company’s default-search deals with phone makers and browser companies helped it illegally maintain a monopoly.

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Persons: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Zuckerberg, Altman, Pichai, — Organizations: Amazon, Microsoft, Justice Department, Google