"...He was shown the instruments of torture as if they were to be used..."

Microsoft used to give almost nothing to political parties, considering politics irrelevant to the function of the corporation. In a saner world, this would be considered laudable.

To a politician, there is no worse crime than the failure to believe that the sun does not shine out of his ass, and having one of the nation's largest corporations ignoring them was intolerable. The situation was corrected. Bill Gates was hauled before our rulers and made to realize where the real power in this country lies. He was made to realize that the government had the power to destroy him at a whim, for no objective reason, and maybe he ought to be playing the game the way the other corporations do. The company has now changed its ways.

Oh, you thought this was just an antitrust action?

More perceptive people might realize that awakening Microsoft into the realm of power politics may turn out to have been a mistake. We'll see.