Andreessen Horowitz focus of DOJ probe over board directors

Andreessen Horowitz is now the focus of a Justice Department antitrust probe over whether some of its investment partners are improperly sitting on the boards of competing AI companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The names at the center of it include Databricks and Fivetran, both backed by the firm. Ben Horowitz sits on Databricks’ board. Martin Casado sits on Fivetran’s board, and he was also a director of dbt labs before Fivetran bought that company in June.

The government has already spent months reviewing the dbt labs deal, which was first announced in October, and cleared it without conditions. The separate investigation into Andreessen Horowitz started around the same time and is still open, the people said. DOJ hasn’t decided what to do next, and in theory the matter could still end with no action.

This is not a brand-new kind of enforcement. It tracks a Biden-era focus on “interlocking directorates,” the old 1914 antitrust rule aimed at people or entities serving on boards of direct competitors. Under Jonathan Kanter, the department pushed directors off a number of boards to fix those conflicts. Ari Emanuel left the Live Nation board in 2021, and more than 10 other directors stepped down in 2022 and 2023.

What makes this probe unusual is that the target appears to be the firm itself, not just one person. The law is written to cover companies as well as individuals, and some courts have agreed, which gives Andreessen Horowitz room to push back if the government presses ahead. That matters because the firm is huge by venture standards: as of January it had $90 billion under management and recently raised a $15 billion fund, its biggest ever.

The timing is awkward for a firm that has leaned hard into AI and into Washington. Andreessen Horowitz has backed coding startup Cursor, voice AI company ElevenLabs, OpenAI and SpaceX, and Databricks remains a major portfolio company. Horowitz and Marc Andreessen each donated millions in 2024 to a group aligned with Donald Trump, while Horowitz later gave $2.5 million to a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris. The government may decide not to act. But if it does, this could become a very public test of how far venture firms can stretch boardroom influence.