Senator Cory Booker called for the government to investigate actions taken by tech giants Amazon and Google, two companies that have long had financial and personal ties to the New Jersey Democrat.
Booker targeted the companies during an interview with Recode, in which he called for scrutiny of Amazon for its proposed merger with Whole Foods and also Google for its growing size.
Booker told Recode he was signing onto a letter from legislators calling on the Justice Department to investigate Amazon's $14 billion entrance into the grocery store business. He said he was "highly skeptical" of the merger and the impact it would have on grocery prices.
"We're having a hard enough time getting supermarkets to move into urban communities, to give people choice, to give people price competitiveness, so that actually they’re paying for affordable groceries," Booker said. "I worry about grocery consolidation, I worry about the jobs that many of these grocery stores create, and so I am skeptical of this particular merger, highly skeptical of it."
Booker complained that the country's "regulatory agencies … just aren’t doing their jobs" and said, "the U.S. government absolutely should take a look at Google."
The critiques of Amazon and Google come as a surprise given his past relationship with the companies, which have both been allies of Booker since even before he joined the Senate.
It was in an Amazon property, in fact, that Booker initially launched his campaign for Senate in 2013.
Booker made his announcement from the headquarters of Audible, an audio-book company Amazon acquired for $300 million—it had moved its headquarters to Newark while Booker was mayor.
Audible CEO Donald Katz, whom Booker described as "manna from heaven," contributed $10,200 to his 2013 campaign. Mike Bezos, who is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's stepfather, contributed an additional $10,000.
Booker and Jeff Bezos met three years earlier over a dinner that occurred during an annual summit of billionaire media moguls. They were joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Amazon PAC has contributed $7,500 to Booker, including $2,500 on June 27 of this year.
The senator's ties are just as close with Google and its chief officer Eric Schmidt, who was part of a $1.75 million investment in Booker's own tech start-up Waywire. Booker's stake in the company was originally valued at between $1 million and $5 million, but Booker stepped down from the company during his Senate campaign after facing criticism.
Schmidt contributed $5,200 to that Senate campaign, and Google's PAC contributed an additional $12,500—more than it gave to any federal candidate that cycle.
Booker and Schmidt have met publicly as recently as two weeks ago, when the Google chief visited Capitol Hill for a meeting with Booker.
The senator's office did not respond to inquiries into whether Booker raised his concerns about Google's growing footprint during their meeting, or whether he had reached out to Amazon. He seemed to take direct shots at the billionaires he used to pal around with, stating that "corporate villainy is reigning" in the tech industry.
"We’ve got to start having a conversation in this country: How are we going to measure the success of the tech sector?" Booker said to Recode. "Is it by its ability to create a small handful of billionaires, or the ability for us to create pro-democracy forces?"