Donald Trump Taps Anti-Censorship Andrew Ferguson to Lead Federal Trade Commission

President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency.

“I am pleased to appoint Andrew N. Ferguson to be the next Chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Andrew has a proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship, and protecting Freedom of Speech in our Great Country. Sworn in as a Commissioner on April 2, 2024, he will be able to fight on behalf of the American People on Day One of my Administration,” Trump wrote in a statement on Truth Social.

Ferguson has served as a Solicitor General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was an antitrust litigator at many Washington, DC, law firms. He also clerked for Judge Karen Henderson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as well as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Federal Trade Commission is one of the two main agencies tasked with combatting anticompetitive practices, and reviews mergers and acquisitions.

Under Trump, the FTC will likely take a more hawkish stance against big tech.

Ferguson last week urged the FTC to investigate “unlawful collusion” between big tech platforms and called to stop advertiser boycotts, which he believes harms competition.

He echoed Commissioner Melissa Holyoak’s proposal to revive Trump’s first-term Executive Order 13925 to promote transparency regarding big tech’s content moderation and censorship practices.

He wrote:

We should address not just censorious conduct specifically, but also investigate the structural issues that may have given these platforms their power over Americans’ lives and speech in the first place. In particular, we must vigorously enforce the antitrust laws against any platforms found to be unlawfully limiting Americans’ ability to exchange ideas freely and openly. We must prosecute any unlawful collusion between online platforms, and confront advertiser boycotts which threaten competition among those platforms.

“Censorship, even if carried out transparently and honestly, is inimical to American democracy. The Commission must use the full extent of its authority to protect the free speech of all Americans,” Ferguson concluded in his statement. “That authority includes the power to investigate collusion that may suppress competition and, in doing so, suppress free speech online. We ought to conduct such an investigation. And if our investigation reveals anti-competitive cartels that facilitate or promote censorship, we ought to bust them up.”