Gautam Adani has been named as one of eight defendants in a $250 million bribery case.
PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images
Gautam Adani has been charged with bribery in a $250 million case by federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors said four of his associates discussed their share of the bribes via Excel and PowerPoint.
Those presentations listed various ways to reimburse Adani for the bribes, investigators say.
New York prosecutors charging one of India's richest men with bribery said his associates used Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint to discuss and analyze their corrupt payments.
Gautam Adani, the founder of the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, is accused by federal prosecutors of promising more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials for solar panel contracts and then hiding the payments from investors.
Two senior executives of his energy subsidiary, Adani Green Energy, were named as defendants: his nephew, Sagar Adani, and a managing director, Vneet Jaain.
Prosecutors also charged four executives and stakeholders of another India-based company, Azure Power Global, saying they conspired with Adani to facilitate the bribes and later conceal them.
The indictment against the eight men said the Azure team used Excel and PowerPoint presentations to "determine which corrupt payment option was best."
Officials said the Azure execs were figuring out how to reimburse Adani about $80 million for their share of the bribes since the billionaire's team handled the payments.
So the Azure team discussed their options with presentations created by Rupesh Agarwal, a consultant for Azure and one of the defendants, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said that in one PowerPoint presentation, Agarwal detailed a list of ways that Azure could financially return the favor to Adani.
These options included handing over an energy project to Adani, entering a joint venture with him in the US, or paying the billionaire's firm through a "development fee," per the indictment.
The Azure execs are also accused of later trying to conceal their involvement by deleting text messages and at least one PowerPoint presentation.
An attorney for Cyril Cabanes, one of the defendants associated with Azure Power Global, told Business Insider he had no comment on the allegations related to the Excel and PowerPoint presentations.
The Adani Group and attorneys for the other defendants did not respond to requests for comment from BI.
Although the Adani Group's companies are not listed on US markets, US authorities have stepped in because the Indian conglomerate has been raising billions with international banks and American investors.
Prosecutors said that during this period, the Adani Group falsely told investors at least four times that it had not paid bribes.
As for Azure, the energy firm was on the New York Stock Exchange until November 2023, when the company was delisted by the exchange's committee.
The Eastern District of New York is prosecuting the bribery case and said the Adani Group had stood to profit about $2 billion from the contracts acquired through bribes.
Notably, two other "co-conspirators," a British citizen living in Hong Kong and an Indian citizen, were mentioned but not named.
"As stated by the US Department of Justice itself, 'the charges in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.' All possible legal recourse will be sought," the statement read.
As of press time, shares of companies owned by the Adani Group, including its main firm Adani Enterprises and Adani Green Energy, have plunged some 25% since the indictment made headlines on Wednesday.
The SEC on Wednesday also charged Adani and his nephew, Sagar, with violating antifraud provisions, asking for civil penalties, permanent injunctions, and the barring of both from officer or director positions.
The DOJ proposed banning Google from paying for search distribution deals.
Google's search dominance relies on distribution, not just technology.
Investors worry Google's market share could drop if distribution deals end.
The online search business is not about technology. It's about distribution.
The US Department of Justice made that clear Wednesday when it proposed fixes for a judge's earth-shaking ruling that Google is an illegal monopolist.
The DOJ's remedies cut to the heart of how Google distributes its search engine and how that broad reach is key to the company's dominance of this crucial and lucrative market.
The government's suggestion that Google be forced to sell Chrome initially grabbed the headlines. But, on Thursday, the potential crackdown on all distribution deals caught investors' attention.
The US government's lawyers said Google should be banned from offering "anything of value for any form" of search distribution. That especially includes Apple, but also covers any other partner or company, with limited exceptions, according to the DOJ's executive summary.
ISI Evercore internet analyst Mark Mahaney called this distribution crackdown "draconian" and said investors were surprised by the severity of the proposals. Google shares dropped 5% on Thursday.
The reason for this concern is that the online search business is not really about the quality of the technology. The edge comes from massive distribution and the huge volume of user queries that come with such a broad reach.
When people use Google to search on the web, the company monitors what results they click on. It feeds these responses back into its search engine, and the product gets constantly better. For instance, if most people click on the third result for a particular query, Google's search engine will likely adjust and rank that result higher in the future.
This self-reinforcing system is very hard to compete against. This is how the DOJ put it on Wednesday:
"Search engines rely on user data to improve search quality β an outcome that drives more users to a search engine. Users attract advertisers, and advertising dollars fund general search engines, creating a perpetual feedback loop that further entrenches Google."
One of the few ways to compete is to get more distribution than Google and pull in the extra queries and click-behavior data.
For many years, Google has paid to lock down most major sources of distribution. The most famous deal is with Apple. Google pays the iPhone maker about $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple's mobile devices.
If the search business was actually about the quality of Google's technology, why does it have to pay Apple $20 billion a year? That question is at the heart of the DOJ's case, and Google has never been able to answer it properly. Because it keeps paying Apple.
If Google search technology is so great, the company shouldn't have to pay for distribution. People would just flock to its search engine all by themselves.
We could soon see a real-world test of this.
If the judge in this case agrees with the DOJ, then these payments will end β not just with Apple, but with any other third-party source of online distribution for Google's search engine.
This may have freaked investors out on Thursday. They know that the search business is mainly about distribution, and Google may not be able to do this now.
In a worst-case scenario, Google could lose a material slice of the US search market, according to Mahaney.
"We believe Google's default search placements via contractual agreements represent 50%+ of Google's US search queries," he estimated on Thursday.
If half of Google's US search queries go away, that could threaten the self-reinforcing cycle of user click data improving its results.
Suddenly, Google Search may not be so uncatchable.
Google's top lawyer, Kent Walker, said the DOJ's proposals would "break" the company's search engine and "deliberately hobble people's ability to access" the service.
Google gets to propose its own remedies on December 20.
Matt Gaetz announced Thursday his withdrawal from consideration to be US attorney general.
He said his confirmation was "unfairly becoming a distraction" to Trump's team.
It's the first major defeat that Trump has faced in staffing his new administration.
Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from consideration to be President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for US attorney general, the former Florida congressman announced on Thursday afternoon.
In a post on X, Gaetz said that the "momentum" behind his nomination was strong, but that his "confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction" for the Trump-Vance transition team.
It comes after Gaetz began meeting with senators on Wednesday, accompanied by Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback - and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vanceβ¦
"I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General," Trump wrote on Truth Social after Gaetz announced his withdrawal. "He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!"
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told The Washington Post that Gaetz's decision to withdraw "was appropriate."
While Gaetz's nomination had excited Trump's most ardent supporters, the Florida Republican faced an uphill battle for confirmation in the Senate, where lawmakers had questions about sex-trafficking allegations that have long dogged him.
The Department of Justice declined to pursue charges against Gaetz in 2023, but the House Ethics Committee continued a probe into the allegations, including speaking with witnesses. The panel met on Wednesday to determine whether it would release a long-awaited report on its investigation but ultimately deadlocked.
CNN reported that Gaetz withdrew from consideration shortly after it reached out to him for comment regarding accusations of a second sexual encounter with a 17-year-old at a party in 2017.
Meanwhile, Gaetz had taken the extraordinary step of resigning from the House after his nomination was announced, ostensibly to allow Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to quickly fill his House seat via a special election.
He had also said that he would not take the oath of office in January, despite being elected to serve another full two-year term through 2027.
It is unclear now whether Gaetz will follow through with that plan, and a spokesman did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Gaetz's withdrawal represents Trump's first major loss in staffing up his incoming administration, though other nominees face confirmation challenges in the Senate.
That follows Judge Mehta's ruling in August that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in search and advertising markets. Google will get to suggest its own remedies, likely in December, and the judge is expected to rule next year.
If Google ends up having to sell or spin off Chrome, it would be a blow to the company. Meanwhile, advertisers and search rivals would likely cheer the news, according to industry experts.
Separating Chrome from Google and preventing default search placement deals "would put Google Search into competition with other paths for advertisers to reach potential customers," said John Kwoka, a professor of economics at Northeastern University. "Advertisers would find competitors for their business, rather than needing to pay a dominant search engine."
Chrome is a hugely popular Google product that the company leans on to grow and maintain its search advertising empire. Chrome holds 61% of the US browser market share, according to StatCounter, while 20% of general search queries come through user-downloaded Chrome browsers, according to the August ruling from Judge Mehta.
Distribution and self-reinforcing data
Chrome is a valuable distribution mechanism for Google Search, and a portal into the searching habits of billions of users.
When you open Chrome and type something into the search bar at the top, these words are automatically transformed into a Google Search. On other browsers and non-Google devices, that's not necessarily the case. With Windows devices, for instance, the main browser defaults to Microsoft's Bing search engine. And when there's an option for users, Google pays partners billions of dollars to set its search engine as the default.
Chrome avoids all these complications and costs because Google controls it and sets its own search engine as the default for free.
Once this important distribution tool is in place, Google collects mountains of user data from the browser, and from searches within the browser. This information goes into creating higher-value targeted advertising.
There's an equally powerful benefit of Chrome: When people use it to search on the web, Google monitors what results they click on. It feeds these responses back into its Search engine and the product gets constantly better. For instance, if most people click on the third result, Google's Search engine will likely adjust and rank that result higher in the future.
This self-reinforcing system β supported by Chrome β is very hard to compete against. One of the few ways to compete is to get more distribution than Google. If Chrome were an independent product, rival search engines might be able to get a piece of this distribution magic.
In 2011, venture capitalist Bill Gurley called Chrome and Android "very expensive and very aggressive 'moats,' funded by the height and magnitude of Google's castle."
Google has also tapped Chrome as a way to reach users with new AI products, including Lens, its image-recognition search feature, as it tries to fend off emerging rivals such as OpenAI.
The lesson of Neeva
Many have tried to take on Google in the browser market, and many have failed. Take Neeva, a privacy-focused search engine launched by Google's former ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy and other ex-Googlers.
Not only did the startup have to develop a search engine from the ground up, it also had to build its own web browser to compete with Chrome because this is such a major source of distribution in the search business.
Neeva lasted four years before closing its doors.
"People forget that Google's success was not a result of only having a better product," Ramaswamy once told The Verge. "There were an incredible number of shrewd distribution decisions made to make that happen."
A 'manageable inconvenience'
Teiffyon Parry, chief strategy officer of the adtech company Equativ, said that losing 3 billion monthly Chrome users would be "no small blow" to Google.
However, Google has many other ways of reaching users and scooping up data, including Gmail, YouTube, a host of physical devices, and the Play Store. The company also has a standalone app that functions as a web browser and has the potential to effectively replace Chrome.
"Chrome has served Google exceptionally well, but its loss would be a manageable inconvenience," said Parry.
Implications for the web
Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity and privacy consultant, is concerned about what might happen to the broader web if Chrome is sold off.
"Chrome is adopting web innovations really fast," he said, giving Chrome's security features as an example of how Google has innovated.
Without Google's financial support, Chrome might struggle on its own, and it's possible that progress on the web slows, weakening the ecosystem, he explained.
"The worst case scenario is deterioration of security and privacy of billions of users, and the rise of cybercrime on unimaginable levels," he warned.
Would Chrome even survive on its own?
One of the biggest questions is how a Chrome spinoff might work. A Bloomberg analysis valued Chrome at $15 billion to $20 billion if it were to be sold or spun off. Would antitrust regulators allow a major rival to buy it?
It's "unlikely" that Meta would be allowed to acquire it, tech blogger Ben Thompson wrote on Wednesday. That would leave someone like OpenAI as a potential buyer, he said, adding that the "distribution Chrome brings would certainly be welcome, and perhaps Chrome could help bootstrap OpenAI's inevitable advertising business."
And if Google has to sell Chrome, will it also be banned from making distribution deals with whoever buys the browser?
"The only way [a spun-off Chrome] could make money is through an integrated search deal," said tech commentator John Gruber on a recent podcast.
There may be ways around it. Earlier this year, a group of researchers published a paper analyzing Google Chrome's role in the search market and within Google's business (it should be noted one of the authors works at rival DuckDuckGo).
"The precedent set by Mozilla's financial dependence on Google highlights potential challenges for Chrome in maintaining its operations without similar support," the researchers said, nodding to the fact Google pays Firefox a lot of money to be its default search engine, despite Firefox's dwindling user numbers.
The researchers proposed one way to divest Chrome without letting it die is to let Google still financially support it if necessary but block Google from exclusive contracts that make Google Search the default. They also suggested web browsers could be reclassified as public utilities.
"Under such a classification, Chrome's agreements and decisions would be subject to heightened scrutiny, particularly to safeguard consumer welfare and prevent exclusionary practices," they wrote.
Google's response
Google plans to appeal any ruling, potentially delaying any final decision by several years. In a statement earlier this week, Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, said the DOJ was pushing "a radical agenda that goes far behind the legal issues in this case."
"The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed," she added.
Are you a current or former Google employee? Got more insight to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).
Gaetz β a polarizing GOP lawmaker and far-right Trump loyalist β has been at the center of several controversies and investigations since his election to Congress in 2016.
Here's a look at Gaetz's background, political career, and potential future in the Trump White House.
Representatives for Gaetz did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Matt Gaetz comes from a prominent political family.
Matt Gaetz swore in his father, Don Gaetz, as Florida Senate president.
Bill Cotterell/AP
Gaetz's father, Don Gaetz, served in the Florida State Senate from 2006 to 2016, including a stint as its president from 2012 to 2014. In November, he was reelected to his old seat representing Florida Senate District 1.
Gaetz's grandfather, Jerry Gaetz, served in the North Dakota Senate and as the mayor of Rugby, North Dakota.
He grew up in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and is a member of the Florida Bar.
Matt Gaetz as a Florida state representative.
Phil Sears/AP
Gaetz earned a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary sciences from Florida State University and his law degree from William & Mary Law School.
Gaetz represented Florida's 4th district in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016.
He is married to Ginger Luckey, a Harvard Business School graduate who works in accounting.
Ginger Luckey and Matt Gaetz on Capitol Hill.
Susan Walsh/AP
Gaetz and Luckey met at Mar-a-Lago in 2020 and wed a year later.
Her brother, Palmer Luckey, founded the virtual reality company Oculus and is a billionaire Republican donor.
As a member of Congress, Gaetz became known for attention-seeking stunts on the House floor.
Matt Gaetz with members of the press outside the US Capitol.
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Gaetz was elected to represent Florida's 1st district in the House of Representatives in 2016.
A month after becoming a member of Congress in 2017, Gaetz introduced a bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.
In 2018, he invited Charles C. Johnson, an alt-right figure who has denied the Holocaust, to the State of the Union. Gaetz told The Daily Beast that he gave Johnson a ticket after he "showed up at my office" on the day of the speech but that the two did not know each other.
In 2019, he barged into a deposition of a former National Security Council official connected to Trump's impeachment inquiry. A meeting transcript showed that Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff swiftly kicked him out of the room, telling the lawmaker, "Mr. Gaetz, take your statement to the press. They do you no good here. So please, absent yourself."
In 2021, he went on an "America First" tour with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in which the two lawmakers repeated Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was "stolen."
Gaetz is also known for insulting his Democratic and Republican colleagues alike, calling Sen. Mitch McConnell "McFailure," deriding Utah Senator-elect John Curtis as "Mitt Romney without good hair," and calling abortion rights activists "ugly" and "overweight."
He was investigated by the Justice Department and the House Ethics Committee regarding allegations of sexual misconduct.
Matt Gaetz was investigated for sexual misconduct in 2021.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In April 2021, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him using campaign funds, which would violate federal sex-trafficking laws.
The House Ethics Committee then announced that it would launch its own investigation into Gaetz's conduct. Gaetz denied the allegations.
Gaetz successfully led efforts to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House in 2023.
Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy in the House Chamber.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
When Republicans retook control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House in a tumultuous process that lasted several days and nearly came to blows on the House floor.
McCarthy made concessions to secure votes from Gaetz and other far-right GOP lawmakers, including allowing any House member to file a "motion to vacate" the House Speaker role.
Dissatisfied with McCarthy's leadership, Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate against him months later. The House voted McCarthy out in October 2023.
McCarthy appeared to reference Gaetz while speaking at Georgetown University in April, saying that he lost his job as House Speaker because "one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old," Politico reported. In response, Gaetz called McCarthy a "liar."
After winning the 2024 election, Trump nominated Gaetz, a longtime loyalist, for US attorney general.
Matt Gaetz has stood by Donald Trump.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
"Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime and upholding our Democracy and Constitution," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcingΒ Gaetz's nomination.
The appointment, which requires Senate confirmation, would have put Gaetz in charge of the Department of Justice, the same organizational body that once investigated sex-trafficking allegations against him.
While Republicans have a majority in the Senate, some Republican lawmakers expressed skepticism about Gaetz's chances of being confirmed.
Lisa Murkowski of Arkansas told MSNBC that she didn't think Gaetz was "a serious nomination for the attorney general."
GOP Rep. Max Miller told CNN, "I don't think Matt cares if he gets confirmed or not. Everybody's talking about him, and that's what he likes the most."
Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives the day his Cabinet nomination was announced.
Matt Gaetz at Mar-a-Lago after Election Day.
Alex Brandon/AP
Gaetz resigned two days before the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to vote on releasing the report from its investigation. His replacement in Congress will be chosen through a special election.
Although the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over former members and did not reach an agreement in that meeting, it could still vote to release the report.
Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for attorney general, saying that his nomination was "unfairly becoming a distraction."
Matt Gaetz and JD Vance.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
In a post announcing his withdrawal on X, Gaetz wrote, "While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition."
Trump echoed Gaetz's reasoning in a post on Truth Social, writing that Gaetz "was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect."
Trump's post continued: "Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!"
Google pays Apple at least $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on iPhones. That could change.
Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images
Google pays Apple at least $20 billion a year to make its search engine the default on iPhones.
Those payments were at the heart of a federal antitrust case Google lost earlier this year.
Now, the government will ask a judge to ban those payments. But it's not a done deal.
Apple makes billions of dollars a year from Google. But a federal judge's ruling could make that money disappear.
That's because a long-running deal between Apple and Google, where Google pays Apple at least $20 billion a year to make Google the default search engine on iPhones, is at the heart of the US government's antitrust case against Google. And Google lost that case earlier this year when Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly in search.
On Wednesday, the US Department of Justice is expected to unveil a list of steps it wants Mehta to take to punish Google. Among the remedies the DOJ is asking for, per The Wall Street Journal: Forcing the company "to stop paying partners such as Apple billions of dollars a year to make Google's search engine the default on web browsers."
Whichmakes sense, since that was a big focus of the government's case. (Though, confusingly, an earlier Bloomberg report about the DOJ's plan focused on forcing Google to sell off its Chrome browser and never mentioned the Apple payments.)
In any case: If Google really is prevented from paying Apple, that could be meaningful for Apple's efforts to make money from services, which have become increasingly important to the company as iPhone sales flatten.
But even if that happens, it doesn't mean Apple automatically loses all the money Google pays it every year. It's possible that another provider, like Microsoft's Bing, could step in to make its own payments to Apple for the same prime real estate.
And while the DOJ's request, and Mehta's eventual ruling, are all important, they're not the end of the story. Google has said it will appeal the ruling. I asked Google and Apple for comment.
One more complexifier: How will the incoming Trump administration treat this case?
On the one hand: Trump's first administration filed the original antitrust complaint against Google, and there are lots of people in Trump's orbit who are upset with Big Tech.
On the other hand: Trump has a record of selective enforcement, and Apple CEO Tim Cook built a rapport with him during the first go-round βΒ which helped Cook convince Trump to exempt Apple products from China tariffs. This one will take quite a bit of time to unspool.
