Poor audio, TV going off: Bezos escape early questions in antitrust hearing

Amazon.com Inc’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, escaped questioning for about an hour in a high-profile U.S. House of Representatives antitrust hearing on Wednesday in what may have been the result of a tech glitch.

Lawmakers, who held the hearing via videoconference, focused on asking the CEOs of Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc a barrage of questions on alleged abuses of market power.

Bezos was questioned intensely later on in the hearing. Any issue with his video stream would not have been the only technical challenge affecting the antitrust grilling in Washington, however.

Poor audio quality, flat-screen televisions going off, chief executives appearing together as thumbnails on a large screen – led to observers on Twitter and frustrated viewers to mock the virtual set-up.