Someone once described Social Security as an anti-guillotine fund, and I think the basic premise applies here, as well.
If we had a strong executive branch right now, we’d have already threatened to launch an FTC inquiry to break up Amazon and or nationalize SpaceX in response, merited or not.
The pure shock of the prospect of breaking them up would spook investors, tank their stock, put both CEOs on the defensive, and force them back in line, and everything would get resolved nicely with a face to face meeting and a handshake.
Whether it’s merited or not is not the point. Purely from a governance standpoint, as a citizen I hate to see corporate interests trying and succeeding to usurp government and societal norms.
Sometimes examples need to be made so others know not to make the same mistake.
In our government, that’s a big part of what the president’s role is. “Bully pulpit” and all that. Presidents do it every day, for smaller and higher profile cases.
At that level, it’s all negotiation. If they didn’t want (or feared the) scrutiny, corporate interests wouldn’t have started the negotiation in the first place. They know it looks bad if Biden doesn’t respond, and that he must in some way. They’re just betting that he won’t start with such a strong gambit, because corporations are no longer afraid of our government, and haven’t been for decades.