I mean of course I think the outcome here is bad, but I’m struggling to think of a kind of regulation that could have prevented it that isn’t completely insane.
Edit: Listen everyone, it sucks, but there's no "one weird trick" where you can have a congress, judiciary, and executive branch dominated by Republicans, that then governs like Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a "roughly half the country wanted this" problem. Adding more regulations is not going to suddenly make the FTC act right; we have thousands of regulations already on the books and if they wanted to do something, they could.
The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that would prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of services and innovation. They aren't doing their job.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/02/nx-s1-5290171/trump-lawsuit-p...
So if something doesn't benefit society, don't extend that grant to it.
Not a fan of Trump, Ellison, or obviously this expose being buried, but I am just trying to understand what the FTC did wrong.
> The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that would prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of services and innovation.
I don't think this is the best summary of either the FTC's mandate from congress nor the antitrust laws in the US.
But whatever, it just seems like what you want is not more regulation (Trump is adding lots of regulation on solar and wind, that's good right?), but different regulators.
It sucks, but there's no "one weird trick" where you can have a congress, judiciary, and executive branch dominated by Republicans, that then makes them governs like Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a "roughly half the country wanted this" problem.
According to data from Thomson Reuters, 2015 is set to be the biggest year ever (once the planned deals close) in worldwide dealmaking, with $4.7 trillion in announced mergers and acquisitions—up 42 percent from 2014, and beating the previous record of $4.4 trillion in 2007.
The year stands out, not just for the total value of the deals but for the number of so-called mega-deals, which refers to any deal that exceeds $5 billion. Just in the last three months, notable mega-deals include AB Inbev’s acquisition of SABMiller, creating a $104 billion beverage company; Pfizer and Allergan’s announced a $160 billion merger; and the chemical companies DuPont and Dow Chemical Company’s plans to unite as a $130 billion company. Thomson Reuters counted 137 mega-deals last year, which accounted for 52 percent of the year’s overall M&A value.
Okay well I basically copy/pasted from ftc.gov:
The FTC’s Bureau of Competition enforces the nation's antitrust laws, which form the foundation of our free market economy. The antitrust laws promote the interests of consumers; they support unfettered markets and result in lower prices and more choices.
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competi...
The Bureau of Competition is committed to preventing mergers and acquisitions that are likely to reduce competition and lead to higher prices, lower quality goods or services, or less innovation
That's not the accusation at hand. The contention is that the Trump administration is threatening to block the merger (corruptly, in opposition to their republican proclivities) unless the news arm of the merged company is operated in a partisan way.
And the evidence for that is that Ellison walked in, threw out CBS News's pre-existing leadership, and brought in a reasonably-well-known-but-still-not-celebrity-enough-to-be-independent partisan republican voice to run it. And now that she's there, she's clearly operating the news room in a partisan way.
Seems like a pretty convincing theory to me.