They just need to hire the right lobbyists, get a meeting at the White House, agree on the terms and call it a settlement.
And if the FTC chair is not agreeable, they will be threatened by said lobbyists and eventually be fired.
If this sounds far-fetched, it is exactly what happened to Gail Slater, then-head of the DOJ's antitrust division and her deputies in 2025 over HPE’s bid to acquire Juniper.
>“Review all Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations commenced under the previous administration to ensure that they do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation.”
Conversely, you could say that congress has delegated "judicial and legislative" powers to the executive, whose will is embodied in a democratically elected president.
"Gail Slater" is not a democratically elected person of any kind, and exists as a function of the executive, and hence of the president's policies. Insofar as the DOJ's anti-trust's leaders depart from the will of the elected president, it is that leader to be fired and replaced. Or else: what ever was the point of electing a president?
There's nothing in principle wrong in a president disagreeing with the execution of his executive powers, delegated to Gail, and hence firing him. Indeed, if that were not the case, the election of a president could never change the operation of the executive, making the election pointless.
If you disagree with the anti-trust decision, the issue isn't with the political mechanism by which it was over-ruled, but with the election of that president.
Things are more corrupt in the US now. That would have worked in Trump 1.0.
I predict they’ll be forced to install an “ombudsman” in the data cleaning / training team, so Trump can inject propaganda and filter out science. (As has been done to many US news outlets already).
Also, they will somehow each put >> $1B into his personal checking account, and hope presidential pardons cover bribing the president after the next few elections.
My prediction: nothing will come of this, and these investigations will either be concluded favorably or dropped no less than six months after the midterms.
There's only one voice that matters in this administration, and he has already made it quite clear that he both does not consider AI to be an issue, and he is more than happy to trample over his agencies to enforce his opinion.
Under that framework I could see Anthropic being blocked from IPO-ing. Amodei was just slightly more confrontational than the other players by wanting to stick to their ethics (which is a really low bar). Given Trump is the pettiest person ever and does everything by vibes, I wouldn’t exclude something dramatic, like pushing Amodei out and replacing him with someone he can control better.
Just speculating here, there is no way to predict how that will play out
If the FTC weren't investigating three of the largest and fastest growing companies in the country for one thing or another, it would be kinda surprising to me.
Claude says my token spend is $15k per week. I’m being charged $50.
They can only do that because of circular finance deals and other fraud. Those deals are also the reason a machine that’d run ~ Claude Opus 4.6 locally costs $5000 instead of the original $1400 MSRP.
Their margins are 90-95%. If I have a gym that charges $50 for an hour pass, but $100 for a month "subscription", would you feel the same way, that you got $36k of value?
That percentage is speculative for now, we don’t actually know their margin. What we know is that Anthropic said publicly they have 80% gross margin IFF they use their own adjusted EBIDTA metric, which ignores revenue sharing, training costs, and stock based compensation
And if the FTC chair is not agreeable, they will be threatened by said lobbyists and eventually be fired.
If this sounds far-fetched, it is exactly what happened to Gail Slater, then-head of the DOJ's antitrust division and her deputies in 2025 over HPE’s bid to acquire Juniper.
Wall Street Journal archive link: https://archive.ph/IMer9
>“Review all Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigations commenced under the previous administration to ensure that they do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation.”
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americ...
"Gail Slater" is not a democratically elected person of any kind, and exists as a function of the executive, and hence of the president's policies. Insofar as the DOJ's anti-trust's leaders depart from the will of the elected president, it is that leader to be fired and replaced. Or else: what ever was the point of electing a president?
There's nothing in principle wrong in a president disagreeing with the execution of his executive powers, delegated to Gail, and hence firing him. Indeed, if that were not the case, the election of a president could never change the operation of the executive, making the election pointless.
If you disagree with the anti-trust decision, the issue isn't with the political mechanism by which it was over-ruled, but with the election of that president.
I predict they’ll be forced to install an “ombudsman” in the data cleaning / training team, so Trump can inject propaganda and filter out science. (As has been done to many US news outlets already).
Also, they will somehow each put >> $1B into his personal checking account, and hope presidential pardons cover bribing the president after the next few elections.
There's only one voice that matters in this administration, and he has already made it quite clear that he both does not consider AI to be an issue, and he is more than happy to trample over his agencies to enforce his opinion.
which is putting it very mildly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824686
Just speculating here, there is no way to predict how that will play out
How is this a fair, level, playing field, U.S.? Making a large pile of money to put millions of people out of a job, it warrants some investigations!
They can only do that because of circular finance deals and other fraud. Those deals are also the reason a machine that’d run ~ Claude Opus 4.6 locally costs $5000 instead of the original $1400 MSRP.