On April 26, a former official of the U.S. antitrust department said on Monday local time that U.S. regulatorsunlikely to stopTesla CEO Elon Musk buys Twitter.
Bill Baer, who once headed the Justice Department’s antitrust division, also said that regulators may investigate Musk’s acquisition of Twitter “in an effort to review whether the transaction poses a risk to competitors and consumers.”
It is reported that Twitter and Musk need to submit the huge deal of about $44 billion to the US Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for review.
The U.S. Department of Justice and the FTC oversee various acquisitions. Officials at both agencies have said they will be watching closely how mergers and acquisitions could lead to rising concentration in the tech industry. The FTC has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, arguing that the company’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp stifled competition.
But Musk’s acquisition of Twitter isn’t the kind of deal that regulators typically intervene. Bell said,U.S. regulators often intervene when a company acquires a competitor. Sometimes regulators also block deals when the acquisition would unfairly benefit another part of the acquirer’s business.Musk’s electric car maker Tesla and space company SpaceX and Twitterno competitionbut it’s unclear whether Musk will somehow link them to his personal social media platform Twitter.
“It seems to me that Musk currently has large stakes in both companies,” said William Kovacic, the former chairman of the FTC. “It’s hard to see how much Twitter has anything to do with both companies.”
DOJ Spokesperson and FTC SpokespersonBoth declined to comment.
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