Trump Era Mergers and Settlements

Starting in the 1970s, America’s antitrust authorities adopted a hands-off approach to merger enforcement. Under the sway of novel economic theories, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division turned a blind eye to the letter of antitrust law, allowing corporate power to consolidate across the economy. Illegal mega-mergers pushed by chief executives and Wall Street financiers were waved through in nearly every industry. We are living with the results of this policy today: hyper-concentrated markets characterized by high prices, few choices, and slowing innovation.

Under the Biden Administration, FTC Chair Lina Khan and DOJ Antitrust Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter began to turn the tide—vigorously enforcing antitrust laws as intended by Congress.

This return to by-the-book enforcement protected consumers, workers, and small businesses from new monopoly abuses. But it enraged corporate executives and Wall Street dealmakers accustomed to friendly treatment from antitrust authorities. Powerful corporations and industry trade rained down lawsuits on Biden’s FTC and DOJ, while leading media voices of the investor class—including the Wall Street Journal opinion section and CNBC’s Jim Cramer—regularly railed against Chair Khan.

So when Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, big money interests breathed a sigh of relief. As The Economist wrote: “it was as if the sun had come up on Wall Street.”

The weeks after the election saw an explosion in the volume of proposed and rumored mega-mergers. This trend has accelerated since the changing of the guard at the FTC and DOJ, as 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, 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.

The Trump Merger Boom tracker will document corporate elites’ presumption that the Trump antitrust regime will serve its own narrow interests, rather than those of American consumers, small businesses, and workers. Note that only mergers above $1 billion in value are tracked.

The Trump Merger “Enforcement” tracker at bottom will document instances where the Trump enforcers seem to be proving them right—through settlements, early terminations and non-enforcement, and outright approvals (in cases where the Federal Communications Commission or bank regulators have authority).

This data was last updated April 2026.