Trump’s Antitrust Trio Heralds Big-Tech Crackdown to Continue

President-elect Donald Trump’s antitrust picks are likely to take a hard-line on the tech giants, and a harder line on corporate consolidation than the average Republican.

All three of the new administration’s selections – Gail Slater as DOJ antitrust chief, and Andrew Ferguson and Mark Meador for the US Federal Trade Commission – are aligned with the “New Right” school that takes a more skeptical view of corporate power. While the Trump team may be more deal-friendly and have different priorities than the Biden administration’s trustbusters, they are likely to continue pursuing aggressive antitrust enforcement.

Mike Davis, a key outside adviser to the president-elect and head of anti-big tech organization Internet Accountability Project, said Trump selected “serious antitrust reformers” for the three key enforcement roles.

“Biden’s antitrust law enforcers find a lot of common ground with Slater, Ferguson and Meador on the need to hold the trillion-dollar big tech monopolists accountable for their market abuses,” he said.

Josh Tzuker, a former senior official in the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said Trump’s picks indicate a “fair bit of alignment” with the departing Biden team.

“All three have thought deeply about antitrust and the role of competition in a free market economy,” said Tzuker, who left the agency this summer and now is global head of antitrust and competition policy at advisory firm FGS Global. “They are pragmatic, and also have a deep understanding of the law.”

Ferguson Memo

Ferguson, one of the FTC’s two current GOP members, is set to succeed Chair Lina Khan Jan. 20. He has already circulated a memo outlining his priorities. In it, Ferguson said he would roll back FTC rulemaking efforts and “stop Lina Khan’s war on mergers” by focusing the FTC’s efforts on deals that would harm competition. Ferguson opposed nearly all of the rules proposed by Khan, including a ban on non-competes and a bid to force companies to make it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions.

In the memo, earlier reported by Punchbowl News, Ferguson also pledged to “protect free speech and fight wokeness” by pivoting to key conservative issues such as alleged collusion among companies related to diversity initiatives, environmental, social, and governance or ESG standards and online advertising boycotts. He also pledged to “fight back against the trans agenda” by investigating doctors, therapists and hospitals that offer healthcare including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for those under 18.

Ferguson has also used a number of his recent dissents to advocate against perceived censorship by large tech companies. In a statement supporting a settlement over an online sneaker seller’s misleading terms of service, he called for an investigation into tech platforms “for banning users and censoring content.” Trump had called for such an investigation during his first administration, but the FTC declined to take it up.

Lobbyists for the tech companies and people close to House Judiciary Chairman and Ohio Republican Jim Jordan pushed to name the other GOP commissioner, Melissa Holyoak, as FTC chair, because she is viewed as a more business-friendly, libertarian candidate, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Ultimately, Trump chose the more populist candidates with an eye toward their records and promises to keep the pressure on the tech giants, the people said.

Tech Cases

In a research note Wednesday, TD Cowen’s Paul Gallant said Ferguson’s anti-Big Tech stance likely means the FTC will continue pursuing its antitrust cases against Meta Platform Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. as well as a recently launched investigation into Microsoft Corp.

And while Ferguson has pledged to be more deal-friendly, that may not apply to the tech giants, which have sought to invest in generative artificial intelligence startups, Gallant said.

“The ability of the largest tech platforms to buy pieces of the GenAI stack could be an important strategy for managing the risks and capturing GenAI upside (eg Amazon + Anthropic),” he wrote. “Ferguson’s comments raise questions about the viability of this M&A strategy.”

Ferguson declined to comment beyond a statement he issued Tuesday.

“At the FTC, we will end Big Tech’s vendetta against competition and free speech,” Ferguson said. “We will make sure that America is the world’s technological leader and the best place for innovators to bring new ideas to life.”

Antitrust Veteran

Trump’s selection of Meador as the third GOP commissioner is likely to help further some of Ferguson’s goals, such as focusing on advertiser boycotts. A veteran of both the FTC and the Justice Department’s antitrust division, he spent three years as an aide to Senator Mike Lee, the ranking Republican on the Senate antitrust subcommittee, before starting a law firm with a former colleague of the department’s outgoing antitrust head, Jonathan Kanter.

In private practice, Meador has represented conservative social media platform Rumble Inc., which has sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google and advertisers it alleges have illegally boycotted it. Meador has also advocated for reinvigorating the use of a dormant FDR-era antitrust law that bars price discrimination against smaller retailers.

Slater, an economic policy aide to Vice President-elect JD Vance, is likely to continue many of the cases filed by the Biden team, such as the twin lawsuits against Google and an antitrust case against Apple Inc.

Amanda Lewis, who worked with both Slater and Meador at the FTC and later on Capitol Hill, said they bring “a unique combination of antitrust litigation and policy expertise, along with a sophisticated understanding of the US and global tech sector.”

The FTC’s two remaining Democrats, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, raised concerns about Ferguson’s proposed priorities. In a letter dated Tuesday, the Democrats noted that his memo doesn’t mention key consumer issues like the cost of health care, prescription drugs or groceries.

“There has been a recent bipartisan alignment on the importance of challenging corporate power that threatens Americans’ freedom and autonomy, and hurts working people and small businesses,” they wrote. “We should not lose that.”

Photo: Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg