• CEOs are waiting to see how the Federal Trade Commission under President Trump will differ from the Biden administration, and thus far, the lighter-touch enforcement that businesses hoped for hasn’t materialized. The FTC is currently suing Meta in an antitrust case, which could see the social-media giant broken up. Meanwhile, Chair Andrew Ferguson has said the agency will stick to the FTC’s more stringent merger framework established under Biden, emphasizing the need for stability.  

Former Federal Trade Commissioner Christine Wilson is airing out more of her views on former Commission Chair Lina Khan. In remarks last week, Wilson said she believes Khan took an interventionist approach, using procedural mechanisms that potentially slowed or blocked more mergers. It was the latest salvo from Wilson after she resigned from the FTC in 2023, claiming Khan “scorned and sidelined” career FTC staffers and presided over a decline in enforcement actions. 

“Chair Khan really did believe that all mergers were bad,” said Wilson, now a partner at law firm Freshfields. “She used what I call just procedural shenanigans—basically using every procedural lever available to chill M&A activity.”

Wilson interviewed sitting FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak at the Berkeley Spring Forum on M&A and the Boardroom in San Francisco last week. Holyoak was asked how the FTC under the current administration would differ from the last. One of the FTC’s roles, along with the Department of Justice, is to review proposed acquisitions and mergers that impact U.S. commerce and are valued at more than $101 million for antitrust issues. President Trump’s administration was predicted to be more business-friendly in the area of dealmaking and M&A, but CEOs and startups are still waiting to see how the newly organized FTC moves in the months ahead and what it means for growth, acquisitions, and the overall appetite for deals.  

Wilson asked Holyoak whether there were practices the previously organized FTC engaged in that were “particularly egregious,” and if businesses could “trust that the Trump administration was going to play straight and look at cases on the merits.” 

Holyoak took a different tone in her response and identified a “lack of communication” and a lack of transparency between the FTC and companies, but said it was a priority of hers to bring that back into the merger-review process. 

Khan did not return a request for comment but a former FTC official who served under Khan said, "Commissioner Wilson's accusation is shockingly out of touch with reality."

The Wall Street Journal reported that dealmakers are still getting used to the new FTC and are awaiting clearer signs about FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson’s approach. He clarified in a February memo that the FTC and DOJ’s joint 2023 merger guidelines were indeed the framework that would guide the agency’s merger-review analysis, dashing hopes the FTC might loosen the reins from the Biden-era framework. Ferguson told an audience packed with executives this month he doesn’t think corporate America should revert to “open season” for M&A, the WSJ reported. 

Meanwhile, the DOJ’s antitrust division leader, Gail Slater, has also raised concerns about the deal-making environment, the Financial Times reported. Slater has previously expressed concerns about too much concentration in certain industries and has said enforcement should be based on direct financial impact on Americans. 

Furthermore, CEOs and executives remain worried Trump could steer antitrust cases in ways that create greater uncertainty, pouring more cold water on the M&A operating environment. It stands in contrast to former chair Lina Khan’s FTC, the FT reported, which was more predictable.  

February marked the first time in more than two years that no deal worth more than $10 billion had been announced globally. This reversed in March with Google’s $32 billion deal to buy Wiz, but April so far has been quieter. 

Year to date, the number of deals is down 19%, according to the WSJ. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Tuesday he would turn his attention back to the electric vehicle maker but said he would likely still work in government as long as President Trump would have him. However, as a special government employee, Musk was only supposed to spend 130 days per year on government work. With about 36 weeks left in the year, Musk’s total time in the SGE role could potentially span 126 to 162 days. 

Tesla investors have been begging Elon Musk to turn his focus back to the electric vehicle maker and execute on his lofty plans for self-driving fleets of taxis, humanoid robots, and unsupervised full-self driving technology. During an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday, Musk finally said he would oblige, and vowed to spend less time on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and more time at Tesla, where he is the CEO. 

“Probably starting next month, in May, my time allocation at DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk said. “I'll have to continue doing it. I think we have the remainder of the President's term just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stopped does not come roaring back, which it’ll do if it has the chance.”

Musk said he would spend “a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so, as long as it is useful.” 

“But starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done,” Musk declared.

The Tesla CEO did not address the time limit on his work as a special government employee (SGE), however, which limits him to serving no more than 130 days within a 365-day period. But he will have to be judicious about how he allocates his Trump days in order to stay within the rules. With roughly 36 weeks left in the year, spending one or two days per week could potentially see Musk spend a total of 126 days to 162 days, given that he’s already spent about 90 days as an SGE thus far. 

That designation allows Musk to serve in outside roles and on boards without making the public disclosures about his finances that would be required of a typical government worker. In addition to Tesla, Musk is also closely involved with a collection of privately-held companies he has founded including SpaceX, X, the Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI. Typically CEOs and board members of companies resign their roles in the private sector before taking on assignments in government positions. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite the lack of clarity over Musk’s time assisting Trump, Tesla investors took his decision as a balm on the troubled automaker. Following Musk’s remarks—which generated news headlines around the country—after-hours trading in Tesla stock shot up more than 5%.

The bump came even as Tesla announced another disappointing quarter for investors, with tumbling operating income, net income, and operating margins.  Revenues were down 9% to $19 billion although energy revenues were up 67% to $2.73 billion. Tesla also had a cash position of about $37 billion, up 38% year over year.

Tesla’s concerned stockholders

With hordes of retail shareholders in its stock, Tesla’s investor relations team takes questions in advance of its quarterly calls. Among the 161 questions submitted about Elon Musk himself, the top three largest retail shareholders asked about his role in government and what Tesla was doing to mitigate harm to the company. 

“Boycotts, protests, vandalism, negative headlines, and a stock slide have been sparked by Elon Musk’s participation in changes to U.S. gov’t services & employment,” wrote a stockholder with about 88,000 shares. “Is the Tesla board discussing whether their CEO should focus fully on Tesla and leave gov’t to elected politicians?”

Another investor with 365,000 shares asked, “How is the company planning to deal with the impact of Elon’s partnership with the current administration?”

The third question with the most shares represented, also the third most-upvoted by other investors, asked: “With Elon's involvement with the federal government the Tesla brand has been under attack, more so than usual. What steps are the company taking to alleviate these attacks and educate the public about the benefits of Tesla?”

Read more about Tesla's Q1 earnings:

Elon Musk’s robotaxi could be Tesla’s final all-new EV: ‘The reality is, in the future, most people are not going to buy cars’

Elon Musk says first Tesla robotaxis in Austin will be a fleet of 10 to 20 Model Ys but gives few details: ‘You can just see for yourself in two months’

Elon Musk’s robotaxi could be its final all-new EV: ‘The reality is in the future most people are not going to buy cars’

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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