Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are stepping aside from day-to-day management of its parent company, Alphabet, the pair announced Tuesday — a transition that comes as the search and advertising giant they founded as a college project is facing toughening scrutiny in Washington., saying Google CEO Sundar Pichai will assume Alphabet's top post as its chief executive. Brin and Page will keep seats on Alphabet's board and remain major shareholders.
The leadership transition comes at a precarious moment for Google. The company is fending off antitrust investigations from both the Justice Department and a coalition of attorneys general representing nearly every state in the country. Congress has also taken the company and its Silicon Valley brethren to task for their policies for moderating online speech and handling the personal data of their users.
Trump and fellow Republicans have also accused Google and other Silicon Valley firms of suppressing conservative views online. Most recently, Republicans accused Google of targeting conservatives with a new policy that prevents political advertisers from targeting their messages to very narrow audiences.
Pichai made his first appearance before Congress last December during a tense House Judiciary Committee hearing at which he fielded a broad range of questions on political bias, election interference and Google's business ties to China, among other topics. Three months earlier, he and Page had angered leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee bya hearing on online disinformation, which instead featured an empty chair labeled "Google.