Mark Meador Confirmed: What Kind of FTC Commissioner Will He Be?

Will He be Another Craven Acolyte or a Serious Enforcer Who Wants to Do the Job Congress Has Tasked Him With?

Apr 11, 2025

Yesterday, the US Senate confirmed Mark Meador as the fifth commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It’s a critical moment for the agency. The FTC is not operating as a fully legitimate administrative body, given that President Trump has blocked two of the five congressional-approved commissioners from performing their legislatively mandated duties due to an attempt to unlawfully fire them. Andrew Ferguson, the current chair of the FTC, has repeatedly demonstrated that he just wants to be President Trump’s lapdog rather than use the vast administrative powers at his disposal to protect the American people against abuses and domination by concentrated corporate power. Commissioner Holyoak has shown she is not much better. I look forward to the moment they change their ways and will gladly praise them for actions that advance a robust enforcement agenda against dominant corporations and support vulnerable market actors like workers and small businesses.

So the question needs to be asked: What kind of commissioner will Mark Meador be? It’s possible that he could be a craven acolyte like his Republican colleagues - willing to perform like a circus clown if President Trump orders them to do so. During his nomination hearing, Meador implicitly supported the idea that the president can and should be able to fire the leaders of independent executive agencies (which contradicts nearly a century of legal precedent). In this regard, he will share common intellectual ground with two of his new colleagues.1 Still, it's unclear whether Meador would resign on principle rather than engage in specific conduct that contradicts his beliefs.

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Meador is also a former staff member of Senator Mike Lee, a lawmaker who is an ardent defender of the conservative and narrow consumer welfare standard and has taken an active interest in the destruction of the FTC with his One Agency Act (which was recently reintroduced by Representative Ben Cline). In fact, Meador worked on similar legislation known as the TEAM Act.2 No doubt, given his three-year stint with the Utah senator, he supports or is at least open to other restrictive views on how antitrust laws should be enforced.

But Meador can be different. I would undoubtedly have stark disagreements with him if we ever had the chance to meet. However, there are several areas of agreement that progressive advocates like me can and should support. After listening to interviews with him and reviewing his published op-eds and articles, I am cautiously optimistic that Meador will be an important voice on the FTC as long as he remains a commissioner of the agency with a Republican majority.3 Moreover, given the current circumstances and the likely Supreme Court ruling allowing the president to terminate independent agency officials at will, Meador could serve as a crucial voice - maintaining some semblance of dissent within the FTC during Trump’s second term.

My cautious optimism isn’t just based on a gut feeling. Instead, it’s supported by specific stances Meador has taken—positions progressive advocates endorse. Just some of the policy positions Meador has taken that left-leaning advocates support include:

Recognizing concentrated private power as a threat to economic liberty. 4
Supporting enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act.5
Agreeing that scrutiny of the finance, agriculture, healthcare, grocery, and transportation sectors is warranted.6
Acknowledging (unlike Chair Ferguson7) the need to regulate AI.8
Recognizing the need to restrain big tech.9
Recognizing the public harms monopolists like LiveNation cause and the need to break them up.10
Unlike Commissioner Holyoak,11 who seems to have an aversion to the word “fairness,” Meador recognizes that fairness matters and should be considered when it comes to initiating an enforcement action.12
While not acknowledging the FTC’s authority to promulgate rules proscribing “unfair methods of competition,” he acknowledges that non-competes have been “overused and abused" and states that the FTC’s law enforcement authority should be used to combat them.13

Some of these views stand in stark contrast to his conservative counterparts. For example, the Robinson-Patman Act is undoubtedly the most hated antitrust law, with most conservatives saying it should not be enforced and repealed.

Nevertheless, there’s no telling what kind of commissioner he will be. People change when they have power, and there’s no guarantee that what he supports today will be what he supports tomorrow. Given the chaos the public is enduring in nearly every aspect of life, I’m not holding my breath that Meador will stick to all the positions he’s publicly (and repeatedly) endorsed. It’s practically certain that he will change his views on many of the items I have listed above.

But Meador has signaled that he is not as servile (or at least doesn’t want to be as servile) as Chair Ferguson or Commissioner Holyoak. And his views on antitrust don’t fully align with the ideological boxes of mainstream MAGA conservatism or consumer welfare abolitionism. It’s possible that I’m reading way too much into it. But, like many, I could use more things to hope for in my life. Today is his first day on the job. We’ll see what happens.

Thanks for reading.

See https://x.com/AFergusonFTC/status/1902132482499084389/photo/1; https://x.com/MHolyoakFTC/status/1902460222712770655/photo/1.

Meador’s biographical information he submitted to the US Senate can be found here, https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/D5355A09-7CD8-4B78-A633-E03E7FFFB7D8.

Flavia Fortes & Khushita Vasant, US FTC nominee Meador signals continued headaches for Big Tech, consolidation, MLex (Dec. 13, 2024), https://www.mlex.com/mlex/antitrust/articles/2273636/us-ftc-nominee-meador-signals-continued-headaches-for-big-tech-consolidation (“Meador believes conservatives are coming around on the use of political power as well, and it's not about punishing your enemies or an eye for an eye, or being vindictive, but acknowledging that the government has a legitimate role to play in protecting economic liberties and cultural values, and not just offload everything to the private sector or a free market and assume that a free market is self perpetuating. ‘What we're seeing now in terms of antitrust policy is almost a return to the authentically conservative understanding that concentrated economic power is just as dangerous as concentrated political power,’ Meador said”).

Mark Ross Meador, Not Enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act is Lawless and Likely Harms Consumers, Fed. Soc. (July 9, 2024), https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/not-enforcing-the-robinson-patman-act-is-lawless-and-likely-harms-consumers (“A blanket refusal to enforce RPA not only offends the rule of law, it throws the baby out with the bathwater and leaves helpless those consumers who are harmed. The FTC should exercise its prosecutorial discretion to investigate and bring RPA cases where it has evidence that consumers are harmed by price discrimination.”).

Mark Meador, Squeezing the Middleman: Ending Underhanded Dealing in the Pharmacy Benefit Management Industry through Regulation, 20 Annals Health L. 77 (2011), http://lawecommons.luc.edu/annals/vol20/iss1/6 (calling for pricing limitations, manufacturer rebate transparency, and restrictions on exploitative practices).

https://x.com/danielahanley/status/1894443952922673382 (“[During his nomination hearing,] In a conversation with Senator Rochester, Meador confirmed he is interested in the healthcare sector (PBMs) and will (attempt to) use all of the FTC's powers.”).

https://x.com/danielahanley/status/1894591152294158704 (“In conversation with Senator Rosen, Meador confirms he will look into competition violations "up and down the grocery supply chain," look into issues related to price-gouging, and work to look into surveillance pricing.”).

Letter to President Trump from FTC Commissioner Andrew N. Ferguson for FTC Chairman (stating he wishes to “End the FTC’s attempt to become an AI regulator.”), https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/FTC-Commissioner-Andrew-N-Ferguson-Overview.pdf.

https://x.com/CatoInstitute/status/1799408803844100150/photo/3 (quoting Meador as saying “Without guardrails in place around A.I., we risk an epistemological crisis in our society where everyone doubts everything because there’s no way to know what’s true and what’s fake, which is bad for democracy.”).

See Heritage Welcomes Antitrust Expert Mark Meador as Visiting Fellow, Heritage Foundation (Oct 19, 2023), https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-welcomes-antitrust-expert-mark-meador-visiting-fellow.

The Global Antitrust Institute, 25th Annual Antitrust Symposium: Proposals to Change the Antitrust Laws, YouTube (Mar 25, 2022) (at 8:00).

Google’s Worst Day is Here (ft. Mark Meador), Moment of Truth (Aug. 12, 2024).

In a now-deleted tweet (likely due to his new role as a commissioner), Meador stated that “I do not understand how in the year of our Lord 2024 someone can say with a straight face that users struggle to identify a connection between Big Tech abuses and market power.” X, August 21, 2024, https://x.com/mrmeador/status/1826378445754171799.

Mark Meador, Ticketmaster’s ‘Legally Permissible’ Abuse of Monopoly Power Won’t Fly, Sportico (July 18, 2024) (“As a Republican former antitrust attorney at both the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission, I firmly believe this course of action [a divestiture] was the only option for antitrust enforcers.”), https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2024/ticketmasters-abuse-of-monopoly-power-wont-fly-1234789894/

Mark Meador, Break Up Live Nation Ticketmaster To Protect Fans, Daily Caller (Jan. 26, 2024), https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/26/meador-live-action-ticketmaster-antitrust/

In the following thread, I review Commissioner Holyoak’s speeches and reveal she seems to go out of her way to avoid saying that the FTC has the authority to prevent unfair practices. https://x.com/danielahanley/status/1902758949637558698.

Flavia Fortes & Khushita Vasant, US FTC nominee Meador signals continued headaches for Big Tech, consolidation, MLex (Dec. 13, 2024), https://www.mlex.com/mlex/antitrust/articles/2273636/us-ftc-nominee-meador-signals-continued-headaches-for-big-tech-consolidation (Meador stated that “‘If you're gonna have a free market, it has to be fair. You have to have rules of the road,’’ he said. ‘‘And we're not talking about blowing up industries and micromanaging the economy, far from it. We don't have to go full ...far-left regulatory state. It's just saying we have laws on the books. Why don't we step in and enforce them to protect our constituents?’’).

https://x.com/danielahanley/status/1894577687903060359 (“In a conversation with Senator Young about non-compete agreements, Meador says he has concerns with them as they have been "overused and abused." Meador chooses not to speak about the FTC's UMC rule but admits that other competition authorities, such as litigation, should be used”).

Law and Power

Mark Meador Confirmed: What Kind of FTC Commissioner Will He Be?

Will He be Another Craven Acolyte or a Serious Enforcer Who Wants to Do the Job Congress Has Tasked Him With?

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