Chairman Ferguson, thank you for joining us today at the World Economy Summit.
You lead the agency at the intersection of some of the hottest topics right now: breaking up big tech, monopolies, and free speech. But I want to start with an energy question to stay on the theme of this track. Oil companies made no secret of the fact that they thought the Biden administration was too hard on them. And in one specific case, you dissented against an order that restricted Pioneer's Scott Sheffield from sitting on the board of Exxon. Now, obviously, you've reopened this. Sheffield is asking for a reversal. Have your dissenting views from back then changed at all? And if not, can we expect the limit to be lifted?
In answer to your — thank you for having me, by the way. In answer to your first question, no, my dissenting views have not changed. We've put the requests out as we're required to do by various administrative law statutes. We put the requests out for public comment. I expect that the public is largely going to share my views that this was quite obviously a politically motivated sham job that rested on a fake theory of antitrust law designed to appease Democratic senators who had been writing letters to my predecessor insisting that she block these mergers, which she knew she could not do. So, you know, I will wait to see what the public comments bear. I'll keep an open mind about assessing what they bear, but certainly my views about that original order have not changed at all. Not at all.
Thank you. Speaking of your predecessor, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board ran a pretty interesting headline recently: 'Is Lina Khan back at the FTC?' It was a specific reference to your warning about price fixing in response to the president's new tariffs. So I had a two-part question on that. The first is, do you actually see anything in common between your predecessor's chairmanship and your own, and what's your relationship like?
With the second — you know, Lina and I have spoken very rarely since she left the agency, but you know, personally, interpersonally, we got along fine. She had a job to do, I had a job to do, that often required us to clash. Sometimes our clashes were quite vicious. Our open exchanges in my dissents and her majority opinions — we had strongly held views and they often were the exact opposite, and you know, that's okay. In terms of the price fixing thing, I — you know, the Wall Street Journal seems to sort of have a hard and fast opposition to all of President Trump's economic policies, and so I don't put a lot of stock into their criticism. I do think it's weird to criticize me for saying I don't want people to use tariffs as an excuse to fix prices. I didn't say as an excuse to raise prices. I said as an excuse to fix prices, which is categorically illegal and is in fact a crime under American law. And I know that I at the FTC and my colleague Gail Slater at DOJ are going to be out there making sure that prices aren't being fixed, which is the thing that the antitrust law cares about. But you know, price rises — the antitrust laws don't prohibit raising prices, obviously. It was sort of a silly canard from the Wall Street Journal.
In terms of the differences between — I think it's more important to focus on the differences between Lina and me than on the similarities. I want vigorous antitrust enforcement. I want it done consistently with the rule of law. And that means, you know, if I think that a merger, for example, is anti-competitive and I can prove it in court, then I'm going to take you to court. If I don't think those two things are true, I'm going to get out of the way. And I do not want the FTC to continue to sort of abuse the process, which I complained a lot about as a minority commissioner, where the agency would do things short of taking people to court to try to dry up deal flow. I want vigorous antitrust enforcement. Obviously, I want vigorous antitrust enforcement. We're in court right now alleging that Meta's acquisition of Instagram violated the antitrust laws. I care about this very deeply, but I also recognize the importance of M&A activity to American economic growth and innovation. People with great new ideas — to get those ideas to market, they need capital. Capital will not flow if people with capital do not think that they can realize returns on their investment. And deals are part of how people get returns. So if you care about American innovation, you should care about making sure we have deal flow. But equally, if you care about American innovation, you should care about vigorous antitrust enforcement, because competition is how we innovate. It is what gives people room to bring their new ideas to market and not be boxed out by big monopolies. So I want vigorous antitrust enforcement, but I absolutely recognize the importance of deal flow to growth and innovation. And the ideological disposition against deal flow that the previous administration had is over.
You brought up Meta. Speaking of that trial, Mark Zuckerberg seems to have thought he could buy his way into your good graces through the president. There's been ample reporting on the lobbying campaign. It was a widespread view. What should other companies learn from that experience that Meta had? Are we unlikely to see, say, an Uber-sponsored presidential library?
I don't know what Mr. Zuckerberg thought, and frankly, it's neither here nor there. I'm an antitrust enforcer, and I think we have a good case and it was ready to go. And I think the fact that we're in the second week of the trial sort of speaks for itself. And you know, in terms of what other companies should take from this, I think they should take that this administration wants a vibrant American economy that is growing quickly and out-innovating the rest of the world, and that antitrust enforcement is part of that. But you know, we are also going to provide and promote regulatory clarity and certainty. We're not going to let the process be the punishment. And I'm going to vigorously enforce, and where we can't enforce because the laws haven't been broken, I'm getting out of the way as quickly as possible and letting the markets do their thing.
One more on the Meta front. Now that things are in full swing in the trial, are you as confident as you can be that, say, the president wouldn't sort of switch gears and ask you to seek a settlement now that you're mid-stream here?
You know, I'm not going to talk about my conversation with the president. I have a very good relationship with the president, and I think the fact that we are in the second week of trial on that front just speaks for itself. And I'm very confident about our chances of success in the trial, and I think it's going very well.
