By Jody Godoy
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the consumer protection and antitrust agency.
Ferguson has said the agency should tackle perceived censorship of conservative viewpoints online. If social media platforms collaborate to suppress such views or advertisers coordinate pulling business from platforms such as Elon Musk’s X, they should be charged with violating U.S. antitrust law, Ferguson has said.
“We must vigorously enforce the antitrust laws against any platforms found to be unlawfully limiting Americans’ ability to exchange ideas freely and openly,” Ferguson said in a recent statement.The agency became a political flashpoint under FTC Chair Lina Khan, who promoted antitrust enforcement as a check on corporate power. Her efforts won fans among some Republicans, including incoming Vice President JD Vance, but drew criticism as overly aggressive from some antitrust lawyers and business groups.
Her successor will inherit a full slate of cases against Big Tech companies, a lawsuit against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, and at least a half dozen lawsuits by companies arguing it has outstripped its authority.
It is unclear whether the incoming chair would continue with unfinished probes, including into practices at Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) that competitors have complained keep customers from switching to other cloud service providers, and potential privacy concerns involving OpenAI.
New leadership could also shift course in two major FTC cases against Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). One takes aim at practices the agency says keep sellers bound to its platform and help Amazon unlawfully dominate the landscape for online marketplaces, and another over practices allegedly meant to trick Prime subscribers out of cancelling service.
The new FTC chair would also oversee a case brought against Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), then known as Facebook, in 2020, during Trump’s first term.
The agency is seeking to unwind its acquisition of Instagram and Whatsapp. But the judge overseeing the case has cast doubt on whether the agency can prevail at trial in April.