{"id":5414,"date":"2026-02-15T14:14:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/15\/justice-departments-antitrust-chief-says-shes-leaving-effective-immediately\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T14:14:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T14:14:51","slug":"justice-departments-antitrust-chief-says-shes-leaving-effective-immediately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/15\/justice-departments-antitrust-chief-says-shes-leaving-effective-immediately\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department’s antitrust chief says she’s leaving, effective immediately"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust unit said Thursday she is leaving the role, effective immediately, at a critical moment for corporate mergers in America.<\/p>\n

Gail Slater, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, wrote on X<\/a>: “It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today.”<\/p>\n

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Slater continued, “It was indeed the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role. Huge thanks to all who supported me this past year, most especially the men and women of” the Department. <\/p>\n

The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement, \u201cOn behalf of the Department of Justice, we thank Gail Slater for her service to the Antitrust Division which works to protect consumers, promote affordability, and expand economic opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slater is leaving just as media giants Netflix and Paramount Skydance battle for control of Warner Bros. Discovery.<\/p>\n

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President Donald Trump had said he was going to get involved in reviewing whichever Warner Bros. deal proceeds, an uncommon occurrence in antitrust matters.<\/p>\n

But in an interview with NBC News, Trump slightly changed his tune. “I\u2019ve been called by both sides, it\u2019s the two sides, but I\u2019ve decided I shouldn\u2019t be involved,” he said. <\/p>\n

“The Justice Department will handle it.”<\/p>\n

Trump has met with executives from both of Warner Bros.’ bidders.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department will also head to court in weeks in a bid to challenge concert venue manager Live Nation’s ownership of Ticketmaster. <\/p>\n

Shares of Live Nation jumped as much as 5.8% after Slater announced her departure. By 1 p.m. ET, the rally had abated to around 2.5%. <\/p>\n

When the Senate confirmed Slater<\/a>, 78 senators from both sides of the aisle voted in her favor. Only 19 opposed her confirmation.<\/p>\n

This week, her deputy in the Antitrust Division also departed. <\/p>\n

Mark Hamer, deputy assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division, wrote on LinkedIn<\/a>, “Decided the time is right for me to return to private practice.” He praised Slater as a “leader of exceptional wisdom, strength and integrity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust unit said Thursday she is leaving the role, effective immediately, at a critical moment for corporate mergers in America. Gail Slater, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division, wrote on X: “It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}