Federal trade commissioners alarmed as Elon Musk’s team seeks antitrust records
Two Democratic appointees to the Federal Trade Commission were raising the alarm Thursday: A group controlled by the world’s richest man might be accessing a trove of confidential business records — including those of his competitors.
The commission is tasked with stopping anticompetitive business practices, especially those that harm consumers and small businesses. After making several statements that seemed supportive of its work, President Donald Trump’s recent actions seem to tell a different story.
Trump in March attempted to remove commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, both of whom were appointed by Democrats. They both say Trump exceeded his powers and are suing to end the attempt. But their uncertain status has slowed or stymied the commission’s efforts against pharmacy middlemen and in other areas.
In a joint statement Thursday, Slaughter and Bedoya raised concerns that members of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” had arrived at the FTC, looking to see whom to fire there. The commissioners worried that Musk’s people would access business secrets that the law requires be kept confidential.
“This threatens the basic functions of the FTC and the markets it protects,” Slaughter and Bedoya said in a written statement. “The FTC collects and retains extremely sensitive and confidential business data. This data can move markets. It can certainly change the competitive dynamics in any industry.”
Musk famously bought the social media platform known as Twitter and changed its name to X. The FTC has been examining such platforms’ practices, as well as those of other tech giants. So it likely has a storehouse of secret information regarding Musk’s companies and those of his competitors.
“Under no circumstances should DOGE be able to access this data,” Bedoya and Slaughter said. “We are deeply concerned that they may do it anyway. These are the legal requirements that the Chairman is bound to respect and the questions that he needs to answer to assure the public, and those the Commission regulates, that the extraordinarily sensitive data the FTC possesses is being safeguarded as required by law.”
Asked for comment, the office of FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson didn’t immediately respond Thursday. But the news organization Reuters quoted FTC spokesman Joe Simonson as saying Ferguson “supports the president’s agenda to cut out waste fraud and abuse in the federal government.”
Bedoya and Slaughter said allowing Musk’s subordinates access FTC files is rife with potential conflicts.
“We understand that DOGE representatives have been onboarded to the FTC as staffers of the Commission, rather than non-staff visitors,” the commissioners wrote. “While this may be an attempt to mitigate the risks posed by DOGE review of the FTC, those risks remain substantial, because they are coming from an arm of the executive branch not authorized by Congress and already known to be full of active market participants. Even if these DOGE-FTC employees focus primarily on contracts and vendor relationships rather than particular case files, they may still access substantial non-public data. For example, our contracts for expert witness testimony necessarily reveal information about ongoing, nonpublic law enforcement investigations.”
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