type: timeline_event
President Trump designated former FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson as the agency's next Chair on January 20, 2025, replacing Lina Khan and effectively ending the Biden administration's attempt to revive aggressive antitrust enforcement. Ferguson, a Republican who joined the Commission in April 2024, had consistently opposed Khan's enforcement initiatives, including rejecting the non-compete rule, dissenting in the FTC's price discrimination cases, and calling the FTC's coordination theory in ExxonMobil/Pioneer 'one of the most ludicrous theories of harm in its merger-enforcement history.' Ferguson explicitly rejected the neo-Brandeisian framework championed by Khan, signaling a return to the consumer welfare standard. Trump also nominated Gail Slater to lead the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and Mark Meador to fill an expected FTC commissioner vacancy. While Ferguson expressed continued hostility toward certain Big Tech practices—stating that 'confronting Big Tech is the fundamental competition question of our day'—his appointment signaled reduced scrutiny of mergers generally and the dismantling of Biden-era merger guidelines, labor market enforcement, and rulemaking initiatives. On March 18, 2025, Trump removed Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya from the FTC, allowing Ferguson to act without Democratic support. Both commissioners contested the removals. The leadership change meant that the most ambitious attempt to revive antitrust enforcement since the 1970s lasted less than four years and achieved limited structural change, with most major tech mergers approved and few monopolies broken up despite widespread concern about concentrated corporate power.