OP's idea is that the FTC punted this at the direction of an elected official who gets campaign donations from tech companies. It does not follow that because the FTC has a revolving door problem (which it definitely does), there was executive pressure to punt. Furthermore, FTC officials tend to work at corporations primarily because they are among the most knowledgeable and well-connected people in the space, not necessarily because there is some kind of slow-acting quid pro quo here. It's still a problem, but it's not really analogous to the idea OP had.