DOJ And FTC Antitrust Enforcement May Get Merged Together

One factoid that should be in every antitrust outline is that both the FTC and the DOJ can bust up monopolies. The DOJ tends to handle the criminal side of antitrust while the FTC handles civil, but there is some undeniable overlap in the work that they do. So why keep both? Musk can’t seem to find a persuasive enough answer to maintain the apparent redundancy. Reuters has coverage:

Elon Musk, the billionaire behind President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the U.S. government, threw his support behind a bill that would consolidate antitrust enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice, stripping that authority from the Federal Trade Commission.
…
If the bill were to pass, the FTC would continue to enforce consumer protection laws. But Democrats have raised concern that the U.S. would effectively repeal the FTC’s broad authority to protect against unfair methods of competition under the FTC Act, which it used in 2024 to sue pharmacy benefit managers. The DOJ does not have that same authority.

Gotta give it to him — consolidating overlapping roles that two separate departments have does read like a common sense maneuver. But, given that the move would result in an effectively weaker trust-bustin’ monolith, makes you wonder if the faulty is actually a filter. Jonathan Wolf has a great read on the matter — Elon could just be a dingwit who is literally cleaving through bureaucracy with a chainsaw:

But, he could also be playing some long game to benefit his bank account. Granted he doesn’t need to be the mastermind behind the 4-D chess; if the guy could afford to buy Twitter, he could afford to get a Robert Green type to advise him on how to break the government for profit.

Elon Musk Throws Weight Behind Merging FTC And DOJ Antitrust Units [Reuters]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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