Elon Musk throws weight behind merging FTC and DOJ antitrust units

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By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) – Elon Musk, the billionaire behind President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the U.S. government, threw his support behind a bill that would consolidate antitrust enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice, stripping that authority from the Federal Trade Commission.

“Sounds logical,” Musk posted on X late on Wednesday night in response to U.S. Senator Mike Lee’s post on the social media site expressing hope that Trump and Musk’s government efficiency effort would examine consolidating the two antitrust enforcers.

Lee, a Republican from Utah, posted about the One Agency Act, a bill he first proposed in 2020, which would remove the FTC’s antitrust authority and give it to the DOJ. The two agencies have shared federal antitrust jurisdiction, intended to guard against anticompetitive business behavior, for more than 100 years.

“We should no more have two antitrust agencies than two presidents of the United States—no more than the Catholic Church should have two popes,” Lee posted on Wednesday.

Spokespeople for the FTC and DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

A current version of the bill pending in the U.S. House introduced by Representative Ben Cline, a Republican from Virginia, would allow the head of the DOJ’s antitrust division to restructure the merged agency.

If the bill were to pass, the FTC would continue to enforce consumer protection laws. But Democrats have raised concern that the U.S. would effectively repeal the FTC’s broad authority to protect against unfair methods of competition under the FTC Act, which it used in 2024 to sue pharmacy benefit managers. The DOJ does not have that same authority.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York, Editing by Franklin Paul)