With President-elect Donald Trump’s administration about to begin — for his second, nonconsecutive White House term — business leaders who have grudgingly dealt with heightened oversight are eager to see how far incoming Trump officials limit the federal government’s regulatory imprint.

It’s an open question since Trump’s picks are sending mixed messages about how aggressive his administration will be in regulating industries and which ones have the most to worry about, or not.

WHO ARE THE NEW PLAYERS 

Trump has so far announced three major antitrust nominees. Trump tapped Andrew Ferguson for FTC chair, Mark Meador to replace Ferguson’s seat as a commissioner on the five-member panel, and Gail Slater to run the DOJ’s antitrust department.

Business leaders who have been frustrated by four years of aggressive regulation from the FTC can look forward to leaders operating with a more traditional understanding of the agency’s role. However, they shouldn’t expect too drastic a change in the interests of the agency. 

The commission is bipartisan, split 3-2 with the president’s party controlling the majority. Ferguson has been a commissioner in the minority since March 2024, and he has the most traditional approach to antitrust regulation of the three Trump nominated. That’s unsurprising since Ferguson previously was chief legal adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the longtime Senate GOP leader, and an adviser to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA). Ferguson previously was a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Ferguson has called Khan “anti-business,” agreeing with many of her critics, and recently voted against the agency’s new junk fees enforcement. The rules force live-event ticket sellers to include all fees in the upfront prices. 

Meador will assume the third conservative seat (given Khan steps down after Jan. 20, which hasn’t been announced yet). Meador is very familiar with FTC regulation, having worked at the commission and DOJ’s antitrust department before. He broadly favors strong enforcement, views honed as a policy adviser to Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and J.D. Vance (R-OH), who is now vice president-elect.

The Meador appointment highlights seemingly contrasting and even contradictory approaches to business regulation. His views are aligned with a populist sect of Republicans that is skeptical of all big institutions. Vance’s preference to regulate Big Tech is well known, and he’s previously complemented Khan’s aggressive approach to large businesses.

Slater, another former Vance adviser, is close with the incoming vice president but appeals to those on either side of the regulation debate. While she’s expected to go after Big Tech aggressively, evidenced by Trump’s Truth Social announcement in which he accused the industry of “run[ning] wild” for years, she also has experience arguing against government interference as counsel for the now-defunct Internet Association. 

WHAT TO EXPECT FOR REGULATION 

Under Khan, there have been massive changes to the way the government regulates business activity, particularly regarding mergers and acquisitions. In 2023, the agency reviewed the 2010 guidelines that determine when the FTC can intervene. The revised guidelines lowered the threshold needed to justify FTC oversight to 30% and also prohibited a company from merging or acquiring multiple smaller companies, even if those acquisitions wouldn’t violate the guidelines individually. 

The move was not popular among business leaders.

“Typically, less than 3% of transactions raise any competitive concerns. Yet, the current leadership at the FTC and DOJ have taken every step possible to create uncertainty and increase the burden around the entire merger process,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley wrote in a statement following the rollout of the new guidelines. 

“The agencies peddle a false narrative on concentration in our economy, are quick to dismiss the benefits and efficiencies mergers create for consumers, and ignore the positive impact mergers have on innovation,” Bradley added.

Ferguson dissented, accusing Khan of not understanding the difference between legal mergers and monopoly activity. Ferguson has said he has a “higher threshold” to challenge deals. In a December 2024 memo, Ferguson said he’d repeal “burdensome regulations.” But a full repeal of the guidelines is uncertain.  

“I don’t think we should get into a cycle where we are just rescinding guidelines every time the chairmanship changes hands,” Ferguson said in June 2024. 

Under Khan’s leadership, the FTC also changed its interpretation of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Review Act, a 1976 law forbidding completion of certain mergers, acquisitions, and other transactions until they have made a detailed filing with the FTC and DOJ, and waited for those agencies to decide the proposed move does not adversely affect U.S. commerce under federal antitrust laws.

The law now requires companies to complete a more comprehensive premerger filing form. Businesses have complained these forms, intended to give the FTC greater ability to understand if the move would decrease competitiveness or not, have increased the time it takes to file for a merger — from about a week to multiple months. The cost of completing these forms can exceed $2 million.  

Despite open criticism, the merger filing form is unlikely to go anywhere; Ferguson and the other Republican commissioner, Melissa Holyoak, approved the initiative when Khan introduced it. 

Still, business executives can hope for a repeal of a high-profile FTC move during Khan’s tenure, a ban on noncompete agreements in employment contracts. After the ruling, Ferguson wrote in his dissent that it was the “most extraordinary assertion of authority” in the FTC’s history and was “unlawful.” A federal court subsequently blocked the ruling from going into effect, which the FTC in turn appealed in October 2024. When Ferguson assumes the position of chair, he could drop the appeal. 

The most anticipated issue for Trump and his nominees to pursue is what they call free speech online. Ferguson promised to focus regulation on Big Tech monopolies that censor speech, saying, “The Commission must use the full extent of its authority to protect the free speech of all Americans. That authority includes the power to investigate collusion that may suppress competition and, in doing so, suppress free speech online. We ought to conduct such an investigation. And if our investigation reveals anti-competitive cartels that facilitate or promote censorship, we ought to bust them up.” 

This has been a public source of frustration for Trump, who sued social media companies during his first term over concerns of anti-conservative censorship. 

“We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well,” Trump said at a news conference after the suit against Facebook and YouTube, along with CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and the then-head of Twitter (before the billionaire Elon Musk bought the social media platform), Jack Dorsey, was filed in 2021.

WHAT’S COMING FOR ONGOING LAWSUITS 

Though Ferguson, Meador, and Slater are expected to narrow the regulatory power of the antitrust enforcers to create a friendlier environment for mergers and acquisitions, relaxed oversight of tech companies isn’t as likely. During Trump’s first administration, the FTC brought many cases against tech companies that are ongoing. Though the president-elect’s allies have evolved to include Musk and Meta founder and primary owner Zuckerberg, he’s promised his pursuit against Big Tech will continue.  

The DOJ and FTC have brought a slew of massive lawsuits against tech companies in recent years, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Meta, over competition and consumer concerns. The DOJ’s suit against Google concerning advertising practices began under Trump 1.0, but some Republicans worry the rhetoric accusing Google of being a monopoly is too strong. Slater, who will be replacing Biden appointee Jonathan Kantor, has been hailed a “strong candidate to continue [Kantor’s] work,” and Meador is similarly expected to be a proponent of strong enforcement on Google. While working for Lee, the Utah senator, Meador drafted a bill that would have broken up Google’s ad business — DOJ antitrust enforces have floated a similar proposal. 

Meador is also a supporter of the Robinson-Pact Act, which prohibits pricing discrimination to ensure small businesses don’t have to pay higher prices to wholesalers. The RPA hasn’t been enforced by the government since the 1980s but could be used in the FTC’s case against Amazon, according to a 2021 Columbia Law Review article edited by Khan herself when she was a Columbia Law School professor. Khan has been trying to revive the RPA recently.

The FTC is arguing that Amazon is acting like a monopoly by increasing prices for sellers who don’t opt into their Prime fulfillment services and by promoting the company’s products above independent sellers’. 

In July, Meador endorsed reviving the RPA, saying not enforcing it leaves consumers “helpless.” On this, Khan, Meador, and Ferguson agree, though Ferguson is the most restrained in his endorsement. In a dissenting opinion in December, he wrote, “The Commission has not brought a Robinson-Patman Act claim in nearly a quarter century. … The government has not failed to enforce the Act because everyone has been complying with it. Rather, the government simply was not interested in enforcing the law.”

“But the Commission must soundly exercise discretion about when to enforce a law,” he added. 

The FTC case against Meta over its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp is scheduled to go to trial in April 2025 and will be an early test of the agency’s fervor to take on social media companies. 

“We must vigorously enforce the antitrust laws against any platforms found to be unlawfully limiting Americans’ ability to exchange ideas freely and openly,” Ferguson wrote in December.