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antitrust
‘Pure Corruption Reigns’ at Trump DOJ as Top Antitrust Official Gail Slater Ousted
"Congress needs to pass legislation in 2029 that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime," said one antitrust advocate.
Feb 12, 2026
Gail Slater, once heralded as the leader of the "surging MAGA antitrust movement," announced Thursday that she is leaving her role as the top antitrust official at the US Justice Department after repeatedly clashing with Trump administration leadership over corporate merger enforcement.
Slater said in a statement that "it is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as [assistant attorney general] for antitrust today," but reporting indicates she was forced out. According to The Guardian, Slater was "given the option to resign or be let go." CBS News reported that "top Trump administration officials had decided to oust" Slater and "had discussions with her shortly before she announced on social media that she was leaving the department."
Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement that Congress must "aggressively investigate" the circumstances surrounding Slater's departure, noting that it came shortly before the closely watched Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust trial is set to begin next month.
Live Nation's stock price jumped following Slater's announcement, and at least one lobbyist openly celebrated the news.
Days before Slater's apparent removal, Semafor reported that Live Nation executives and lobbyists "have been negotiating with senior DOJ officials outside the antitrust division to avert a trial over whether the company is operating an illegal monopoly that has driven up concert prices."
" Wall Street expects there will be a settlement to block this trial at the behest of the lobbyists who engineered this ouster," said Stoller. "Congress needs to pass legislation in 2029 that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime, as well as breaking up companies who have their monopolization cases settled. In addition, the next Justice Department needs to organize an aggressive white-collar criminal law section to jail the lawyers, bankers, and lobbyists enabling this seeming crime spree."
Huge L for the populists on the right as lobbyists successfully got Trump's head of antitrust fired. I have not been a fan of Gail Slater, and this firing has been a long time coming. Things were bad under Gail, they could get worse now. https://t.co/zzyhXA3iWo
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) February 12, 2026
Slater's tenure at the head of the DOJ's antitrust division was marked by a power struggle with pro-corporate officials within—and at the top of—the department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former corporate lobbyist.
Last summer, top Justice Department officials reportedly bypassed Slater and cut a sweetheart merger settlement deal with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. Weeks later, DOJ leadership removed two of Slater's deputies for "insubordination."
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said Thursday that Slater's departure "is very bad news for small businesses who had hoped for some faithful enforcement of the antitrust laws against monopolies like Ticketmaster."
"Instead, it looks like pure corruption reigns at the DOJ—pay the right people and you can freely crush your small rivals," Mitchell added.
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Trump’s Lax Approach to Antitrust Helps Spur Banner Year for Corporate Mergers
"Trump’s new antitrust enforcers have demonstrated a willingness to facilitate dealmaking through an uptick in early terminations and settlements," said the American Economic Liberties Project.
Dec 26, 2025
Global corporate mergers surged to near-record highs in 2025, driven in part by US President Donald Trump's lax approach to antitrust enforcement.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that global dealmaking in 2025 topped $4 trillion, including 68 mergers worth $10 billion or more, highlighted by Netflix's $72 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery and a proposed $85 billion mega-merger between railway giants Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
The US alone accounted for $2.3 trillion worth of mergers and acquisitions, which the Financial Times said highlighted the Trump administration's role in green-lighting corporate consolidation.
"Top dealmakers said that the Trump administration’s push to loosen regulation had encouraged companies to explore tie-ups that they might otherwise have been hesitant to pursue," the Financial Times explained.
Andrew Nussbaum, co-chair of the executive committee at law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, told the Financial Times that corporate leaders "see a willingness of the regulators to engage in constructive dialogue" under the second Trump administration, which has given them "a willingness to take on regulatory risk for transactions that are strategic."
The American Economic Liberties Project has also taken note of the Trump administration's role in shepherding through big mergers, and created a Trump Merger Boom tracker earlier this year to document the massive wave of corporate consolidation.
In its analysis of the administration's lax approach to antitrust enforcement, the American Economic Liberties Project said that "Trump’s new antitrust enforcers have demonstrated a willingness to facilitate dealmaking through an uptick in early terminations and settlements."
"Despite pro-enforcement rhetoric early on from Trump’s heads of the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division," the American Economic Liberties Project added, "it’s becoming increasingly clear that agency leadership is having trouble making their decisions in a vacuum—with a quiet tide of deals granted to companies that have been friendly to the White House."
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With GOP 'Looking at' Tyson's Alleged Market Manipulation, Nebraska Candidate Osborn Says 'Enforce the Law'
"Candidate for Senate Dan Osborn is already doing more for the people affected by the Tyson closure than the current Nebraska senators," said a worker rights advocate.
Dec 12, 2025
Instead of "another investigation" into possible wrongdoing by meatpacking giant Tyson, independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn is demanding that elected officials in Nebraska simply "pick up the damn phone" and demand action from the Trump administration following the company's closure of one of the nation's largest meat processing plants in what one antitrust expert said was a clear-cut case of market manipulation.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), whom Osborn is challenging in the 2026 election, said Thursday that his team is "taking a look at any allegation of wrongdoing" by Tyson, weeks after the company announced its massive plant in Lexington, Nebraska is set to close in January—putting more than 3,000 people in a town of 11,000 out of work.
The closure comes months after Tyson boosted its stock buybacks and following an announcement that its adjusted operating income had increased by 26% compared to 2024. Tyson controls about 80% of the US beef market along with three other companies, and the Department of Justice is investigating whether the four corporations are colluding to keep beef prices high.
Despite near-record high prices in the industry, Tyson said last week it was closing the Lexington plant and scaling back operations at its facility in Amarillo, Texas to "right-size its beef business and position it for long-term success."
Basel Musharbash, an antitrust lawyer at Antimonopoly Counsel in Paris, Texas, attended a press conference with Osborn across the street from the Lexington plant this week and said that the "legal analysis here is pretty straightforward" regarding whether Tyson has engaged in market manipulation.
“The Lexington plant accounts for around 5% of the nation’s cattle," said Musharbash. "By shutting down a plant that slaughters such a large portion of the cattle in this region and the country, Tyson will single-handedly reshape the nation’s cattle markets from boom to bust.”
Ranchers will be forced "to accept lower prices, and Tyson will be able to make higher profits," he said.
Osborn and Musharbash say Tyson has broken the 2021 Packers and Stockyards Act, which prohibits meatpackers from engaging "in any course of business or [doing] any act for the purpose or with the effect of manipulating or controlling prices."
Addressing Ricketts on social media, Osborn said Tyson workers "don’t need another useless congressional report that leads to nothing. We need ACTION!"
"Tyson workers and Nebraska ranchers need you to demand that [US Agriculture] Secretary Brooke Rollins immediately initiate an action to hold Tyson accountable for any market manipulation," he said.
The USDA told the Nebraska Examiner this week that it is monitoring "the closure of the plant to ensure compliance with the Packers and Stockyards Act," but Musharbash said Rollins can and should "compel Tyson to either keep the plant open or sell the plant to an upstart rival who will introduce honest competition into this cartelized industry."
"There is nothing left for Ricketts to 'look into,' and Nebraskans certainly don’t need some intern on Ricketts’ staff to write a research paper about this issue for the next six months while Tyson hollows out the Lexington community for its selfish gain," added Musharbash. "Nebraska—and this whole country—deserves better leaders than this."
Osborn pointed out Thursday that Ricketts has taken more than $70,000 in campaign donations from Tyson.
“The people of Lexington need their elected officials to fight now more than ever,” Osborn said at the press conference this week. “The law that’s been on the books for over 100 years should be enforced... So pick up the damn phone, call Brooke Rollins, and get the USDA to enforce the law.”
By visiting Lexington and speaking out against Tyson's gutting of thousands of jobs, former Federal Trade Commission member Alvaro Bedoya said that "candidate for Senate Dan Osborn is already doing more for the people affected by the Tyson closure than the current Nebraska senators."
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