The antitrust division is now being led by acting chief Omeed Aseffi, who administration officials and key allies of the president expect will align the DOJ more closely with Ferguson’s enforcement-focused model and bring a more active litigation posture to the agency.

Ferguson’s ‘MAGA antitrust’ philosophy moves to center stage

Inside the administration, officials who spoke to the Washington Examiner repeatedly point to Ferguson as the intellectual and strategic “North Star” for competition policy who has “set the tone” for antitrust policy. One source pointed to figures such as Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett and the newly appointed acting chief of antitrust, Assefi, who agree with Ferguson’s approach.

In a March interview with Bloomberg just two months following Trump’s inauguration, Ferguson openly embraced the label that has come to define the administration’s direction.

“You can call it MAGA antitrust if you want,” Ferguson said, describing it as a conservative framework that rejects both laissez-faire assumptions about markets and sweeping regulatory expansion.

“We aren’t beholden to libertarian ideology about markets,” he said. “We take markets actually as they are … and we take very seriously that consumers and laborers suffer in markets short of things that just affect short-term price and output.”

Ferguson has argued that traditional economic metrics alone fail to capture real-world harms from too much market consolidation, such as reduced innovation, diminished quality, or fewer consumer options.

“The loss of innovation … or the loss of choice or product quality, even if you can’t measure it the way an economist would measure price and output, still matter to consumers and still matter to antitrust,” he said.

He has framed the approach as enforcement-heavy but regulation-light.

“My view is just like a cop on the beat,” Ferguson said. “If we really vigorously enforce the antitrust laws, we avoid the need for regulation, because regulation is what you have to do when monopolies have totally consumed a market.”

Data underscores the FTC’s leading role

Recent enforcement data illustrates why officials see the FTC as setting the pace. Information compiled by the law firm Dechert found that last year the DOJ’s antitrust arm conducted six significant merger investigations, compared with 10 handled by the FTC. The FTC also completed its investigations more quickly on average, spending roughly three fewer hours per matter than DOJ.

Ferguson has paired that enforcement focus with scrutiny of major technology platforms, an area closely aligned with the MAGA movement’s criticism of Silicon Valley and Big Tech censorship.

This week, Ferguson said he sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook raising concerns about allegations that Apple News “systematically promoted” articles from left-leaning outlets while suppressing conservative publications without users’ knowledge.

Today I sent a letter to Tim Cook expressing my concerns about allegations that Apple News has, unbeknownst to its users, systematically promoted news articles from left-wing news outlets and suppressed content from conservative publications. pic.twitter.com/xXCxNgRbpc

— Andrew Ferguson (@AFergusonFTC) February 11, 2026

The move exemplified a core tenant of oversight that many conservative populist antitrust hawks see as a welcome part of this administration’s approach.

Internal tensions surfaced before Slater’s departure

Slater’s resignation followed months of internal friction that had increasingly spilled into public view.

In a recent dispute last week, Slater attempted to end the detail of her chief of staff, Sara Matar, only to be overruled by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Semafor reported. Slater briefly posted online that Matar’s role had concluded before deleting the message, with a DOJ spokesman later saying the post was inaccurate and that Matar’s assignment had been extended.

Another flashpoint involved the department’s handling of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise–Juniper Networks merger last year. Slater opposed settling litigation tied to the deal, while Bondi and national security officials favored moving forward with a resolution, a disagreement that strained relationships inside the division and contributed to the departure of two senior deputies.

Despite arriving with support from both populist conservatives, including Vice President JD Vance, and some progressive antitrust advocates, Slater did not pursue a steady stream of new cases. Sources familiar with the matter complained that the Antitrust Division did not file a new civil monopolization or merger challenge, even as it reviewed hundreds of transactions and granted early termination to at least 180 deals, according to an analysis by the firm Freshfields.

Competing narratives over what the shake-up means

Some Democrats have interpreted the leadership change as evidence of undue corporate influence.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MN), a key watchdog in Congress on antitrust enforcement, said Slater’s ouster raised concerns about favoritism toward large companies.

“Americans’ top concern is affordability, but one of Trump’s few bipartisan-supported nominees … was just ousted,” Warren said in a statement. “Why? It looks like corruption.”

“A small army of MAGA-aligned lawyers and lobbyists have been trying to sell off merger approvals that will increase prices and harm innovation to the highest bidder,” she added.

Trump allies sharply dispute that characterization, arguing the transition reflects a push for stronger enforcement rather than weaker oversight.

Mike Davis, a conservative legal activist who initially recommended Slater for the job, and more recently admitted he recommended her firing, said the idea that her removal benefited corporate clients misunderstands how antitrust litigation works.

Important:

From a legal-client perspective, it would have been much better for my clients if Gail Slater stayed in her job.

She torched her credibility, with her erratic behavior.

So it was much easier to (quickly) appeal her (erratic and unreasonable) decisions.

(And win.)…

— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) February 13, 2026

“From a legal-client perspective, it would have been much better for my clients if Gail Slater stayed in her job,” Davis said, arguing companies found her decisions easier to challenge. Meanwhile, critics within the administration panned her for the lack of enforcement actions taken under her watch.

Davis said the difference with Omeed Assefi, whose background is in criminal enforcement and has had supervisory roles on antitrust matters, is that “he is very well liked and respected.”

“So it is much harder to appeal his decisions. And he is much more aggressive and politically smarter with antitrust enforcement,” Davis added.

TOP ANTITRUST OFFICIAL RESIGNS IN LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER BEING APPOINTED BY TRUMP

In Davis’s eyes, the philosophical approach to antitrust under Trump’s second term boils to what merging companies care about the most.

“Merging companies care most about certainty,” he said Friday. “Jumping through the antitrust hoops is the cost of doing business. They just want to know how many and how high.”