Companies and their advisors waking up to a new Washington: You can do deals again.
The ouster of Justice Department antitrust chief Gail Slater last week makes clear that the White House’s business-friendly approach has won out over populists like Slater, Vice President JD Vance, and MAGA adviser Steve Bannon who are more skeptical of corporate consolidation.
A year ago, deal lawyers were busy rewriting client memos to reflect the populism of the campaign trail, where candidate Trump had railed against big tech, defense, and healthcare companies “stifling competition.” That rhetoric has been replaced by a basic long-leash Republicanism — a shift that may be unsurprising with a dealmaker in the Oval Office, but has disappointed progressives and hardcore populists and sent legal sherpas scrambling to freshen their advice.
Remedies are back on the table, offering companies the chance to cut a deal to get their mergers approved, sometimes with the help of an ascendant crop of MAGA lobbyists.
“The advice to clients that have transactions likely to face scrutiny is to come ready with something to offer,” said Tim Cornell, an antitrust lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton.
The dominant force in big tech has shifted from online censorship fights, which sharpened questions about platforms’ size and reach, to AI urgency, where the industry and the White House are more aligned. Vice President JD Vance, Slater’s former boss, has used his political capital elsewhere, staying out of deal fights between the antitrust division and higher-ups at Trump’s DOJ.
“I think we all thought Vance would be more influential,” Cornell said. Slater “was an official serving at the pleasure of the president, and apparently it’s no longer the president’s pleasure.”
