House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan subpoenas big tech CEOs over user speech

House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan on Wednesday issued subpoenas to top executives at the biggest tech firms as Republicans on the committee express concerns over restrictions of users’ speech. 

The subpoena letters demand that Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella turn over all documents the committee is requesting by March 23. Jordan and other House Republicans want to analyze communications between the Biden administration and the top tech companies to determine whether they censored legitimate speech, particularly on subjects like COVID-19 policy. 

CBS News has reviewed copies of the subpoenas, which demand communications between or among each company and the executive branch “referring or relating to the moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation of content,” as well as documents related to those topics. 

“To develop effective legislation, such as the possible enactment of new statutory limits on the executive branch’s ability to work with big tech to restrict the circulation of content and deplatform users, the Committee on the Judiciary must first understand how and to what extent the executive branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech,” said the letters from Jordan to the CEOs.

House Republicans have tried repeatedly to glean the information they’re requesting since before they took control of the House, and the subpoena power that comes with it. Jordan doesn’t believe the companies have sufficiently complied with their requests. 

“We have started producing documents, are engaged with the committee, and committed to working in good faith,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CBS News on Wednesday.  

Meta had a similar response.

“We have already begun producing documents in response to the committee’s requests and will continue to do so moving forward,” a spokesperson for Meta said. 

Jordan became chairman of the committee last month, and has made policing big tech firms’ censorship practices a top priority.