President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau, he said on social media Tuesday.
Mr. Ferguson is one of two Senate-confirmed Republican FTC commissioners appointed by President Biden, and will be the most America-first, pro-innovation FTC chairman in our nation's history, President Trump said.
“Andrew has a proven track record of standing up to big tech censorship and protecting our nation's free speech,” President Trump said on his social media platforms.
Mr Ferguson said authorities should tackle censorship of conservative views online. Ferguson said that if social media platforms work together to suppress such opinions, or advertisers work together to drive business away from platforms such as Elon Musk's He said the company should be charged with violating antitrust laws.
“We must vigorously enforce antitrust laws against platforms found to be unlawfully restricting Americans' ability to freely and openly exchange ideas,” Ferguson wrote in a recent paper. said. 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 Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, but drew criticism from some antitrust lawyers and business groups who said they were too aggressive.
Her successor will inherit a series of lawsuits against Big Tech companies, three pharmacy benefit management companies, and at least six other lawsuits by companies that claim they have exceeded their authority.
Will the next chair continue unfinished investigations into Microsoft's practices, which competitors have complained are preventing customers from switching to other cloud service providers, and potential privacy concerns surrounding OpenAI? It is unclear whether
The new leadership could also change course on the FTC's two major lawsuits against Amazon. One took aim at practices that the agency claims lock sellers onto its platform and help Amazon illegally control the world of online marketplaces; It targets a practice that is said to be designed to trick people into canceling their services.
The new FTC chairman will also oversee a lawsuit filed against Metaplatforms, then known as Facebook, in 2020 during the Trump administration's first term.
The agency is seeking to reverse the tech companies' acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. But the judge overseeing the case has cast doubt on whether the agency will prevail in April.
