9 ms·

U.S. intelligence intervened with DOJ to push HPE-Juniper merger

138 points by rascul 1y ago

jodacola 1y ago
It’s easy for me to get worked about about the things being done and allowed by this administration, but I have to wonder: will allowing these mega companies create more opportunities for scrappy upstarts to disrupt these giant, slow moving, clunky monoliths?
- gryfft 1y ago
  Sure, and then the clunky monoliths buy the scrappy little disruptors and take them apart. (Source: worked for a scrappy little disruptor that was bought out and cannibalized)
  - xyst 1y ago
    One way to avoid “corporate raiders" and hostile takeovers is for companies to be owned by employees.
- bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
  Probably not. Look at Juniper specifically. In 2021, their revenue roughly broke down as 40% service provider, 35% enterprise campuses, 25% cloud. In 2025, that had shifted to 45% enterprise campuses, 30% service provider, and 25% cloud. That shift is mostly reflected by how much money they pumped into Mist, and how successful that was. Scrappy little upstarts have a _really_ hard time selling networking equipment to service providers and enterprises, who require tons of arcane features that take a long time to build and validate. They also operate very much on reputation, and rely on training pipelines outside of their own organizations (i.e., certifications). On the SP side (and the more modern enterprise side) there's also the significant issue of integration with other IT systems. At that scale, people aren't just command line jockeys that log into a router to provision something - Comcast can't operate like that, they need well defined API integrations with their provisioning system. It is interesting and noteworthy that HPE's interest in Juniper is mostly due to the success of Mist, which _was_ a scrappy little upstart that got purchased by Juniper in 2019 (???). Mist (as a product line) only got successful once it was backed by Juniper, a known player. They had a much, much harder time selling to big accounts before that. However, it's not a random scrappy little upstart, it got started by very senior people from Cisco that couldn't get their vision executed at Cisco. Specifically, Bob Friday (who co-founded Airespace in 2001, which was purchased by Cisco and directly led to Cisco wireless controllers), and Sujay Hajela, who was an SVP responsible for enterprise and wireless at Cisco, having led the Meraki purchase. More than a decade later, Meraki - another upstart, I guess - still isn't aimed at much other than SMB. That Mist made it as an newcomer is the exception to the rule and entirely due to those very specific people and their very specific contacts. I wouldn't be surprised if at all if Mist had initially been fully intended to be a spin-out from Cisco with the express purpose of folding them back in a decade later if they were successful enough, and it just so happened that they got snagged up by Juniper first.
  - Den_VR 1y ago
    Spot on about Mist (Mist AI). Great insight.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    A nit here: leaving Cisco to do a product Cisco should do itself is literally part of the cultural DNA of Cisco; it's practically what you're supposed to do. In years of working with/around Cisco, I saw people literally do startups for things that were just planned features for existing Cisco products.
    - bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
      Completely agree, I expressed that poorly - that Mist didn't just get rolled back into Cisco seems like an aberration given Cisco's spin-out culture, and I'd be curious to find out some day what happened for them to get scooped up by Juniper instead. "Normal" startups in this space that aren't just spin-outs designed to come back to the mothership if they're successful are incredibly rare.
  - jodacola 1y ago
    Appreciate the insights; this segment of the industry is my forte so this was educational. I realize it’s impossible to predict what comes next, but I’m curious about analogs to this merger and what one could reasonably expect to happen over the next many years. My philosophy is showing in that I don’t see these deals as good for competition or the market in general, so I’m (perhaps hopelessly) looking for the silver lining here.
- inerte 1y ago
  “We need bigger companies so smaller ones have a chance” is a weird take.
  - jodacola 1y ago
    That wasn’t the take I was going for, but can see how it came off that way. I’m opposed to these mega corps and looking (hoping) for some silver lining here that gives me some hope. Sibling comments have educated on that front.
- xyst 1y ago
  Maybe, but what’s to stop “scrappy upstart” from becoming the next HPE? We need companies owned by the people that built the company. Not by the C-level executives that are appointed by a board of billionaire lackeys, bankers, trust fund kiddies who are hellbent on flipping a profit at all costs. Also of course more regulation, and higher corporate tax. Get rid of the stock manipulation tactic known as stock buybacks that only encourage short term growth/pump in price of stock.
stogot 1y ago
Isn’t Ericsson (HQ in Texas) the best positioned to counter Hauwei in the telecom space? don’t see why HPE/Juniper tech merger would be a priority or advantage
- sneak 1y ago
  Because it’s really about putting one’s thumb on the scale of market participation, not actually about China at all. This is why Boeing can make as many bad planes as they want. They’re part of the US government and they will always “win” the game we pretend they play against other vendors. Same goes for Lockheed, Raytheon, AT&T, Microsoft, HP, and Dell. Delta. Probably also Ford and GM. AWS is trying to get on this list (see the whole JEDI thing that was gift-wrapped for them until Oracle got mad and noisy about the corruption) and almost certainly will eventually if they haven’t already. Circumstances suggest that Apple (because iPhone use aiding in global surveillance due to iMessage), Google (because Gmail and search), and Meta (because WhatsApp) are similarly favored (although not totally integrated like Microsoft and Boeing and AT&T) over any competitors, due to their massive and often-overlooked strategic geopolitical importance, both domestic and abroad. There are unimaginably big perks to playing ball with the state, just ask Palantir. Others I would assume get special treatment: Comcast, Level 3, Verizon. Probably also Visa. Good luck trying to compete with any of them in the market on merit when the people who own and control the market don’t want their buddies or surveillance partners to lose. It’s mostly about the transfer of MANY billions of dollars of public tax money to the friends and associates of those who direct that money. China is just a convenient excuse. We all know the US as a unit is totally incapable of catching up to Chinese technology output or development pace (save for isolated pockets like Apple and SpaceX who thrive despite being in the US, not because of it). Most of the functions of the state are around allocation of ostensibly-public money, and little else, I find.
  - kube-system 1y ago
    > Probably also Ford and GM. Probably? GM was literally nationalized for a period not that long ago.
  - tristor 1y ago
perihelions 1y ago
The much longer Bloomberg article is also worth reading for background, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-29/top-doj-antitrust-officials-removed-over-hpe-juniper-settlement https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-29/top-doj-a... ("Top DOJ Antitrust Officials Removed Over HPE-Juniper Settlement" (July 29)) > "Senate Democrats alleged the removals were the result of improper political influence and lawmakers are pushing the federal judge overseeing HPE’s acquisition to hold a lengthy review of the antitrust settlement." > "Roger Alford, the top deputy to the Justice Department’s antitrust chief Gail Slater, and William Rinner, who led the department’s merger enforcement, were dismissed Monday, according to people familiar with the situation."
- chasil 1y ago
  Here is the archived Bloomberg article. If you want to edit this into your comment, no problem. https://archive.ph/LlUJM https://archive.ph/LlUJM
mjburgess 1y ago
It sounds more like the US IC treats HP like one of its own departments, and it would very much like to do the same with Juniper. The idea that even allies will be using US networking equipment in a couple decades seems implausible. Everyone is well-aware that any boxes coming out of the US are as likely to be tapped as ones coming out of china.
- graemep 1y ago
  That has always been true, and yet almost every country buys both US or Chinese equipment, and a good many by both.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    Maybe it's time we stop.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      Sounds like a great idea; good luck with that.
- pyrale 1y ago
  The Snowden leaks showed 20 years ago that cisco routers were being sent to NSA for "aftermarket" modifications before being sent to clients. It's not news.
  - aerostable_slug 1y ago
    The Snowden leaks demonstrated Cisco wasn't a knowing participant — the equipment was covertly diverted and then modified. That's quite different than knowing collaboration.
- tempodox 1y ago
  Is there any computer or internet company that the US IC doesn't treat as their own department? Maybe some very small and insignificant ones.
footlose_3815 1y ago
[flagged]
- sneak 1y ago
  The concept of “projection” is really crazy once you get a good feel for it. I see it happening in so many places now. Shitty people seem to believe that everyone is like themselves; they assume that others would do the same shitty things they would do in a similar situation. They assign the emotional reactions and responses that they would have in a given set of circumstances to others, even if there is no evidence to support it. I suspect this is also where nuclear brinksmanship comes from. “We would conduct a sneak attack first strike on them, if we could, so they must be planning on doing it to us.” I think this is also why most cops don’t see anything wrong with breaking the law to carry out what they believe their duty to be. They see the world through the lens of criminal behavior. Corrupt politicians know that they would be availing themselves of every possible option to personally enrich themselves and push their agenda; they assume that every politician in power must also be doing this and are just getting away with it.
- krapp 1y ago
  What's crazy is that this is a well known and established strategy of the right, to the point that "every accusation is a confession" has become memetic, and yet it always works.
- perihelions 1y ago
  "The government is secretly controlled by an unaccountable, undemocratic Deep State", says the government secretly puppeteering civil finance regulators with CIA agents.
  - theyinwhy 1y ago
    every accusation is a confession
    - azinman2 1y ago
      This could not be more literally true
chasil 1y ago
https://archive.ph/wPzHG https://archive.ph/wPzHG
chasil 1y ago
There are so many dead companies and technologies inside of HPE. I fail to see how this impeded Huawei.
Den_VR 1y ago
Hopefully after the merger Juniper will still be able to do things like lend equipment to events CCC. Aruba has been pretty lackluster under HPE, so we’ll see where Juniper takes them. Or is taken.
tptacek 1y ago
Just a reminder that Juniper was the firm that managed to (1) ship VPN appliances that used the Dual EC RNG, (2) get hacked, and (3) had the hackers substitute in their own Dual EC backdoor curve point, which shipped in their product for years. https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf
- tempodox 1y ago
  I knew there must be a good reason for this push.
- nullc 1y ago
  I believe that (1) happened prior to the acquisition of netscreen by Juniper. (so, if your comment is meant to suggest something about the integrity of the management, etc. it may not be as significant as you're suggesting).
  - tptacek 1y ago
    Juniper acquired Netscreen in 2004. The rest of the timeline is in the paper. So, no, I think.
lenerdenator 1y ago
Rule #1 of digital security: There is always some spy, somewhere, trying to work an angle to get into your traffic. Absolutely no exceptions.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
  Rule #1.a.: Some part of your network is already compromised. You just don't know which part. Design everything with this in mind.
derelicta 1y ago
[flagged]
- xyst 1y ago
  Found Peter Thiels alt account ;)
  - derelicta 1y ago
    I laughed ngl
xyst 1y ago
I wonder if the "US intelligence community" is really Kash Patel. He has been known to work/consult/lobby on behalf of Chinese (and other foreign country) companies to push or backchannel in DC for favorable outcomes in US. [1] [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/patels-roster-of-foreign-clients-draws-scrutiny-over-conflicting-interests-with-the-fbi https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/patels-roster-of-forei...
- anonymars 1y ago
  I was surprised to learn that he also wrote a children's book https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/1955550123 https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...
treebeard901 1y ago
The DOJ and the Courts have all been owned by the business class for a long time. It is basically whoever has the most money or political connections. Nothing else really matters.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
BobbyTables2 1y ago
Kinda rich for a company that was in bed with the Chinese govt (H3C) and has a track record of killing the things it acquires. Maybe they really wanted to ensure that Juniper dies a slow death ?

138 points by rascul 1y ago

It’s easy for me to get worked about about the things being done and allowed by this administration, but I have to wonder: will allowing these mega companies create more opportunities for scrappy upstarts to disrupt these giant, slow moving, clunky monoliths?

gryfft 1y ago
Sure, and then the clunky monoliths buy the scrappy little disruptors and take them apart. (Source: worked for a scrappy little disruptor that was bought out and cannibalized)
- xyst 1y ago
  One way to avoid “corporate raiders" and hostile takeovers is for companies to be owned by employees.
bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
Probably not. Look at Juniper specifically. In 2021, their revenue roughly broke down as 40% service provider, 35% enterprise campuses, 25% cloud. In 2025, that had shifted to 45% enterprise campuses, 30% service provider, and 25% cloud. That shift is mostly reflected by how much money they pumped into Mist, and how successful that was. Scrappy little upstarts have a _really_ hard time selling networking equipment to service providers and enterprises, who require tons of arcane features that take a long time to build and validate. They also operate very much on reputation, and rely on training pipelines outside of their own organizations (i.e., certifications). On the SP side (and the more modern enterprise side) there's also the significant issue of integration with other IT systems. At that scale, people aren't just command line jockeys that log into a router to provision something - Comcast can't operate like that, they need well defined API integrations with their provisioning system. It is interesting and noteworthy that HPE's interest in Juniper is mostly due to the success of Mist, which _was_ a scrappy little upstart that got purchased by Juniper in 2019 (???). Mist (as a product line) only got successful once it was backed by Juniper, a known player. They had a much, much harder time selling to big accounts before that. However, it's not a random scrappy little upstart, it got started by very senior people from Cisco that couldn't get their vision executed at Cisco. Specifically, Bob Friday (who co-founded Airespace in 2001, which was purchased by Cisco and directly led to Cisco wireless controllers), and Sujay Hajela, who was an SVP responsible for enterprise and wireless at Cisco, having led the Meraki purchase. More than a decade later, Meraki - another upstart, I guess - still isn't aimed at much other than SMB. That Mist made it as an newcomer is the exception to the rule and entirely due to those very specific people and their very specific contacts. I wouldn't be surprised if at all if Mist had initially been fully intended to be a spin-out from Cisco with the express purpose of folding them back in a decade later if they were successful enough, and it just so happened that they got snagged up by Juniper first.
- Den_VR 1y ago
  Spot on about Mist (Mist AI). Great insight.
- tptacek 1y ago
  A nit here: leaving Cisco to do a product Cisco should do itself is literally part of the cultural DNA of Cisco; it's practically what you're supposed to do. In years of working with/around Cisco, I saw people literally do startups for things that were just planned features for existing Cisco products.
  - bc569a80a344f9c 1y ago
    Completely agree, I expressed that poorly - that Mist didn't just get rolled back into Cisco seems like an aberration given Cisco's spin-out culture, and I'd be curious to find out some day what happened for them to get scooped up by Juniper instead. "Normal" startups in this space that aren't just spin-outs designed to come back to the mothership if they're successful are incredibly rare.
- jodacola 1y ago
  Appreciate the insights; this segment of the industry is my forte so this was educational. I realize it’s impossible to predict what comes next, but I’m curious about analogs to this merger and what one could reasonably expect to happen over the next many years. My philosophy is showing in that I don’t see these deals as good for competition or the market in general, so I’m (perhaps hopelessly) looking for the silver lining here.
inerte 1y ago
“We need bigger companies so smaller ones have a chance” is a weird take.
- jodacola 1y ago
  That wasn’t the take I was going for, but can see how it came off that way. I’m opposed to these mega corps and looking (hoping) for some silver lining here that gives me some hope. Sibling comments have educated on that front.
xyst 1y ago
Maybe, but what’s to stop “scrappy upstart” from becoming the next HPE? We need companies owned by the people that built the company. Not by the C-level executives that are appointed by a board of billionaire lackeys, bankers, trust fund kiddies who are hellbent on flipping a profit at all costs. Also of course more regulation, and higher corporate tax. Get rid of the stock manipulation tactic known as stock buybacks that only encourage short term growth/pump in price of stock.

stogot 1y ago

Isn’t Ericsson (HQ in Texas) the best positioned to counter Hauwei in the telecom space? don’t see why HPE/Juniper tech merger would be a priority or advantage

sneak 1y ago
Because it’s really about putting one’s thumb on the scale of market participation, not actually about China at all. This is why Boeing can make as many bad planes as they want. They’re part of the US government and they will always “win” the game we pretend they play against other vendors. Same goes for Lockheed, Raytheon, AT&T, Microsoft, HP, and Dell. Delta. Probably also Ford and GM. AWS is trying to get on this list (see the whole JEDI thing that was gift-wrapped for them until Oracle got mad and noisy about the corruption) and almost certainly will eventually if they haven’t already. Circumstances suggest that Apple (because iPhone use aiding in global surveillance due to iMessage), Google (because Gmail and search), and Meta (because WhatsApp) are similarly favored (although not totally integrated like Microsoft and Boeing and AT&T) over any competitors, due to their massive and often-overlooked strategic geopolitical importance, both domestic and abroad. There are unimaginably big perks to playing ball with the state, just ask Palantir. Others I would assume get special treatment: Comcast, Level 3, Verizon. Probably also Visa. Good luck trying to compete with any of them in the market on merit when the people who own and control the market don’t want their buddies or surveillance partners to lose. It’s mostly about the transfer of MANY billions of dollars of public tax money to the friends and associates of those who direct that money. China is just a convenient excuse. We all know the US as a unit is totally incapable of catching up to Chinese technology output or development pace (save for isolated pockets like Apple and SpaceX who thrive despite being in the US, not because of it). Most of the functions of the state are around allocation of ostensibly-public money, and little else, I find.
- kube-system 1y ago
  > Probably also Ford and GM. Probably? GM was literally nationalized for a period not that long ago.
- tristor 1y ago

perihelions 1y ago

The much longer Bloomberg article is also worth reading for background, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-29/top-doj-antitrust-officials-removed-over-hpe-juniper-settlement https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-29/top-doj-a... ("Top DOJ Antitrust Officials Removed Over HPE-Juniper Settlement" (July 29)) > "Senate Democrats alleged the removals were the result of improper political influence and lawmakers are pushing the federal judge overseeing HPE’s acquisition to hold a lengthy review of the antitrust settlement." > "Roger Alford, the top deputy to the Justice Department’s antitrust chief Gail Slater, and William Rinner, who led the department’s merger enforcement, were dismissed Monday, according to people familiar with the situation."

chasil 1y ago
Here is the archived Bloomberg article. If you want to edit this into your comment, no problem. https://archive.ph/LlUJM https://archive.ph/LlUJM

mjburgess 1y ago

It sounds more like the US IC treats HP like one of its own departments, and it would very much like to do the same with Juniper. The idea that even allies will be using US networking equipment in a couple decades seems implausible. Everyone is well-aware that any boxes coming out of the US are as likely to be tapped as ones coming out of china.

graemep 1y ago
That has always been true, and yet almost every country buys both US or Chinese equipment, and a good many by both.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  Maybe it's time we stop.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Sounds like a great idea; good luck with that.
pyrale 1y ago
The Snowden leaks showed 20 years ago that cisco routers were being sent to NSA for "aftermarket" modifications before being sent to clients. It's not news.
- aerostable_slug 1y ago
  The Snowden leaks demonstrated Cisco wasn't a knowing participant — the equipment was covertly diverted and then modified. That's quite different than knowing collaboration.
tempodox 1y ago
Is there any computer or internet company that the US IC doesn't treat as their own department? Maybe some very small and insignificant ones.

footlose_3815 1y ago

[flagged]

sneak 1y ago
The concept of “projection” is really crazy once you get a good feel for it. I see it happening in so many places now. Shitty people seem to believe that everyone is like themselves; they assume that others would do the same shitty things they would do in a similar situation. They assign the emotional reactions and responses that they would have in a given set of circumstances to others, even if there is no evidence to support it. I suspect this is also where nuclear brinksmanship comes from. “We would conduct a sneak attack first strike on them, if we could, so they must be planning on doing it to us.” I think this is also why most cops don’t see anything wrong with breaking the law to carry out what they believe their duty to be. They see the world through the lens of criminal behavior. Corrupt politicians know that they would be availing themselves of every possible option to personally enrich themselves and push their agenda; they assume that every politician in power must also be doing this and are just getting away with it.
krapp 1y ago
What's crazy is that this is a well known and established strategy of the right, to the point that "every accusation is a confession" has become memetic, and yet it always works.
perihelions 1y ago
"The government is secretly controlled by an unaccountable, undemocratic Deep State", says the government secretly puppeteering civil finance regulators with CIA agents.
- theyinwhy 1y ago
  every accusation is a confession
  - azinman2 1y ago
    This could not be more literally true

chasil 1y ago

https://archive.ph/wPzHG https://archive.ph/wPzHG

chasil 1y ago

There are so many dead companies and technologies inside of HPE. I fail to see how this impeded Huawei.

Den_VR 1y ago

Hopefully after the merger Juniper will still be able to do things like lend equipment to events CCC. Aruba has been pretty lackluster under HPE, so we’ll see where Juniper takes them. Or is taken.

tptacek 1y ago

Just a reminder that Juniper was the firm that managed to (1) ship VPN appliances that used the Dual EC RNG, (2) get hacked, and (3) had the hackers substitute in their own Dual EC backdoor curve point, which shipped in their product for years. https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/376.pdf

tempodox 1y ago
I knew there must be a good reason for this push.
nullc 1y ago
I believe that (1) happened prior to the acquisition of netscreen by Juniper. (so, if your comment is meant to suggest something about the integrity of the management, etc. it may not be as significant as you're suggesting).
- tptacek 1y ago
  Juniper acquired Netscreen in 2004. The rest of the timeline is in the paper. So, no, I think.

lenerdenator 1y ago

Rule #1 of digital security: There is always some spy, somewhere, trying to work an angle to get into your traffic. Absolutely no exceptions.

tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
Rule #1.a.: Some part of your network is already compromised. You just don't know which part. Design everything with this in mind.

derelicta 1y ago

[flagged]

xyst 1y ago
Found Peter Thiels alt account ;)
- derelicta 1y ago
  I laughed ngl

xyst 1y ago

I wonder if the "US intelligence community" is really Kash Patel. He has been known to work/consult/lobby on behalf of Chinese (and other foreign country) companies to push or backchannel in DC for favorable outcomes in US. [1] [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/patels-roster-of-foreign-clients-draws-scrutiny-over-conflicting-interests-with-the-fbi https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/patels-roster-of-forei...

anonymars 1y ago
I was surprised to learn that he also wrote a children's book https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/1955550123 https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...

treebeard901 1y ago

The DOJ and the Courts have all been owned by the business class for a long time. It is basically whoever has the most money or political connections. Nothing else really matters.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

BobbyTables2 1y ago

Kinda rich for a company that was in bed with the Chinese govt (H3C) and has a track record of killing the things it acquires. Maybe they really wanted to ensure that Juniper dies a slow death ?