The Antitrust Revolt That Never Was
Matt Stoller's account of Gail Slater's removal marks more than a personnel change — it signals the collapse of a political movement that promised to challenge concentrated corporate power but ultimately surrendered to it. The firing reveals how populist antitrust enforcement became hostage to the same lobbying networks it claimed to oppose.
A Hawk Grounded
Matt Stoller writes, "Today, Attorney General Pam Bondi fired antitrust chief Gail Slater, who was considered a hawkish enforcer skeptical of big tech." The removal came after months of internal friction. As Matt Stoller puts it, "Bondi and Blanche had come to dislike and distrust Slater, for a variety of reasons. She had ruffled feathers of corporate allies, been slow to achieve much, and had played her internal politics poorly."
But the deeper story involves external pressure. Matt Stoller writes, "For months now, Bondi and Blanche have been overruling Slater's decisions, both big and small, often at the behest of a corporate lobbyist and MAGA influencer named Mike Davis, one of whose clients is Ticketmaster/Live Nation." The market reacted immediately — Live Nation's stock jumped on expectations that the antitrust case seeking to break up the company may be settled or dropped.
Slater arrived with unusual advantages. Seventy-eight Senators voted for her confirmation in March 2025. She inherited the Google adtech case after arguments concluded, and the judge ruled for the government. Her Division recommended courts be skeptical of algorithmic price collusion. Wall Street noticed — Jim Cramer expressed fear after her nomination.
"It's an ugly fall from grace for Slater, who worked as an advisor to J.D. Vance in the Senate and was considered a flag-bearer for the populists on the right."
The Corruption Pattern
Matt Stoller writes, "In July, Davis, as well as a different lobbyist close to Trump, Arthur Schwartz, sought to have the Division approve a 4 billion merger between Hewlett Packard and Juniper it had first sought to block. Slater said no. So the lobbyists went to Bondi's office, and Slater was overruled." Similar reversals followed: American Express Global Business Travel and CWT Holdings, Compass and Anywhere Real Estate. At one point, Davis tried to have Slater fired directly.
Critics might note that merger approvals sometimes reflect legitimate economic analysis rather than corruption — the Discover/Capital One deal Slater allowed had staff support for a reasonable challenge case, yet she overruled them. The KKR nursing home acquisition that enabled UnitedHealth Group to buy Amedisys was "just bad policy," as Matt Stoller puts it, before the corruption started.
The outcome was stark. Matt Stoller writes, "Under her tenure, the Antitrust Division didn't file a single new civil monopolization or merger case." By contrast, the previous enforcement team — Lina Khan at the FTC and Jonathan Kanter at Justice — brought monopolization or antitrust suits against Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Kroger, KKR, UnitedHealth, CVS, and Ticketmaster. The United States v. Google LLC (2023) case proceeded under their tenure; Slater inherited it after arguments concluded.
Why Populist Antitrust Failed
Matt Stoller writes, "The Trump approach to political economy is overtly based on using the threat of legal action to extract lobbying payouts or other political concessions, with no resistance to this method of governance anywhere on the right." The populist right built their movement on what Matt Stoller calls "a rickety foundation" — they never clearly articulated whether the problem was corporate monopolies or progressives wielding corporate power.
The Brandeisian left, by contrast, built intellectual foundations through journalism, speaking with business people and workers about what was wrong. They identified concentrated private power as fostering severe social harms. Long before anyone talked about the Epstein class, Brandeisians fingered Larry Summers and economists writ large, as well as billionaires like Jeff Bezos, as the intellectual and political center of rot.
Matt Stoller writes, "Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter executed on this clear vision, despite significant obstacles. Big business, the antitrust bar, and law school professors were nasty to the Antitrust division and FTC." They didn't buckle. A new generation of politicians embraced their agenda.
The populist right looked similar on the surface. After seeing the 2016 disruption of the GOP establishment, younger conservatives organized a policy regime to replace libertarian D.C. think tanks. They drew upon traditional conservative skepticism of media and academia, making the case that big tech firms were part of a progressive governance agenda. But establishment figures like Rep. Jim Jordan found a vulnerability: they could simply say "yeah we agree there's too much concentrated power in the hands of the left, let's make sure this power is in the hands of the right."
Critics might note that conservative populists never resolved whether they opposed monopoly power itself or merely progressive monopoly power — a distinction that left them defenseless when corporate conservatives offered loyalty instead of competition.
The Aftermath
Matt Stoller writes, "Elon Musk bought Twitter, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg flipped to become Trump-friendly, and donations for the East Ballroom poured in. And indeed, the right populists solved a problem - no longer is America controlled by a set of monopolists who pretend to be progressives. It's just not the one they imagined themselves addressing."
The enforcement capacity has collapsed. Matt Stoller writes, "The staff exits are so severe that there is effectively no capacity to do investigations into housing, meatpacking, or anything else Trump wants to address. I watch CNBC every morning, and the Biden enforcers were a constant topic of conversation. Today, no one on Wall Street notices the antitrust leaders anymore. They are a high-drama low-impact group."
There may be consequences. A judge, Casey Pitts, overseeing the Hewlett Packard settlement has wide discretion to get information on the case. Democratic state attorneys general are going to depose Davis, Schwartz, and Will Levi of Sidley Austin over what happened. The stocks of both companies went haywire before the settlement was announced, indicating insider trading.
Matt Stoller writes, "Many conservatives are furious about the open auction of policy by men like Davis, because it makes a mockery of their pretense to integrity. They also all know they are about to get pasted in the next election."
Bottom Line
The populist antitrust movement failed not because courts blocked it or logistics prevented it, but because it couldn't wield power with its own ideas — it traded enforcement for loyalty and got nothing. When antitrust chiefs file zero new cases while lobbyists dictate merger approvals, the movement isn't reforming corporate power; it's auctioning policy to the highest bidder.