‘They are very bad’… Former US president Donald Trump on why he is not a ‘fan’ of Google

Donald Trump

Former US president Donald Trump has had a fractured relationship with tech giant Google. Trump has been vocal in his criticism of Google and has called them biased. Now, Trump has dialled up his criticism of Google while also reserving some praise. In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump was asked whether Google should be broken up. "They are very bad to me," he said, before adding that the search giant didn’t highlight positive stories about him.

Google has an antitrust case hanging over its head where it has been suggested that the US Justice Department could order the company to break up its businesses. Trump said that “I give them a lot of credit, they've become such a power.”

"How they became a power is, you know, really the discussion," he said. The former US president also said that “at the same time, it's a very dangerous thing because want to have great companies — we don't want China to have these companies. Right now, China is afraid of Google.”

In the interview Trump also mentioned that he had called Google head to air his concerns about how Google ‘covers’ him. “I’m getting a lot of good stories lately, but you don’t find them in Google,” he told the ‘head of Google’. “I think it’s a whole rigged deal. I think Google’s rigged just like our government’s rigged all over the place.” Trump didn’t name check Google CEO Sundar Pichai. So we have presume that when he mentioned 'head of Google', he was referring to Pichai.

“I’m not a fan of Google. They treat me badly. But are you going to destroy the company by doing that? If you do that are you going to destroy the company? What you can do, without breaking it up, is make sure it’s more fair. They do treat me very badly,” he said in the interview.