Harris-Trump election could have big implications for Big Tech deals:

Google had been in talks to acquire marketing software maker HubSpot earlier this year, but no deal took place. The company then made a run at cybersecurity startup Wiz. But that didn’t happen either.

Google took a different tactic in closing its one notable transaction of late. Following a model pursued by Amazon and Microsoft to lure experts in artificial intelligence, Google announced last month it was hiring the founders of generative AI startup Character.AI. Rather than buying Character outright and shutting it down — the standard acquihire playbook — Google kept the startup alive and entered into a licensing deal for its technology.

This is the new world of tech M&A. Under the Biden administration, and more specifically Federal Trade Commission head Lina Khan, the biggest companies have been thwarted from pursuing large deals. In some cases, they’ve even walked away from smaller deals. Amazon abandoned its $1.7 billion purchase of iRobot in January after the FTC and European regulators raised concerns.

Since peaking at $1.5 trillion in 2021, tech transaction volume has plummeted, dropping to $544 billion last year, according to Dealogic. So far in 2024, that number sits at $465 billion.

Within tech, private equity buyers are the ones keeping the market afloat. In July, BlackRock agreed to buy data provider Preqin for $3.2 billion, two months after Permira announced it was buying website-building platform Squarespace in a deal valued at almost $7 billion. Thoma Bravo, a leading tech buyout firm, said in July it was selling Instructure to KKR for $4.8 billion.

Don’t expect much to change for the rest of this year. With the presidential election coming in November, the regulatory environment could be poised for a shake-up, potentially leading to the removal of deal-making barriers.

However, neither party offers much clarity for what the future would bring. Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate on the Republican ticket, has praised Khan’s stricter rules on mergers, and he told CNBC last week that “there should be an antitrust solution” to some of the behaviors of large tech platforms.

On the Democratic side, billionaire donors Barry Diller and Reid Hoffman have voiced concerns about Khan keeping her job if Vice President Kamala Harris wins.

“If Trump wins, I think that the regulatory environment will still be fairly challenging, and under a challenging regulatory environment, that just limits big deals,” said Andrew Luh, a partner at law firm Gunderson Dettmer who represents startups in mergers and acquisitions.

The Biden administration’s crackdown on Big Tech has gone well beyond squashing M&A.

Alphabet is in the midst of its second antitrust trial, following charges from the Justice Department that the company acted as a monopoly in search and advertising. The DOJ sued Apple on antitrust grounds in March. The FTC has cases pending…