Scoop: Big Tech is "on notice" with FTC's hires
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The Federal Trade Commission under President Trump is beefing up its staff with a string of new hires who are skeptical of Big Tech.
Why it matters: Trump has support from several Big Tech leaders — Elon Musk chief among them. But the president's new FTC chair, Andrew Ferguson, is an outspoken Big Tech critic on X and is signaling the panel won't be stacked with pro-industry quislings.
- The FTC is still moving forward with cases against Amazon and Meta, and it's investigating Microsoft.
Reality check: Musk had a fraught relationship with the FTC under its previous Biden-appointed chair, Lina Khan. The commission recently expressed interest, albeit more in favor of Musk, in the OpenAI case he brought against Sam Altman.
Between the lines: "Big Tech and anyone else who seeks to engage in anticompetitive or illegal behavior have been put on notice," a commission source told Axios in announcing the new hires:
- Chief technology officer Jake Denton: He's a former researcher for the Heritage Foundation's Center for Technology Policy who wrote in one essay that "Big Tech companies have abused the government's anemic enforcement of antitrust law to kill competition, cozy up to hostile foreign actors and consolidate power at the expense of the American consumer and citizen."
- General counsel Lucas Croslow: Virginia's former deputy solicitor general was involved in actions against Big Tech that included support for Texas and Florida laws targeting social media censorship, Virginia's opposition to a federal "Disinformation Governance Board," and the state's request that Google avoid discriminating against antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers.
- Bureau of Competition director Daniel Guarnera: He led the Justice Department's Anti-Monopoly and Collusion Enforcement under President Biden. He played a key role in the federal case that accused Google of monopolizing digital advertising.
- Bureau of Consumer Protection director Chris Mufarrige: Currently the acting director of the bureau, he said at a recent legal workshop that "Big Tech represents the issue of our generation and it is the chair's priority."
