The FTC chair who tilted the agency to Trump

In July, Federal Trade Commission officials gathered dozens of people in a windowless auditorium to discuss a politically charged issue: allegations that doctors had misled minors and their parents about gender-affirming care.

One young panelist said his doctors lied to him about gender transitioning, while a psychiatrist named a doctor and university medical system she claimed “deceive and exploit vulnerable and misinformed consumers.”

Gender-affirming care — which has been endorsed by mainstream medical organizations but is the subject of fierce debate — was not an issue the FTC had tackled before. But Andrew Ferguson, the agency’s chair who organized the invitation-only event, said the workshop was an effort to protect consumers. The event was no different from actions the FTC had taken against people pushing fake cancer cures and shoddy techniques for preventing COVID-19, he added in opening remarks.

“I have heard it argued that the commission ought not to address today’s topic at all because the commission does not regulate the practice of medicine, and because the topic is politically controversial,” he said. “We are here to ensure that those who make claims about gender-affirming care are held to the same standard we apply to everyone else who engages in commerce.”

Ferguson is transforming the FTC, an independent agency that aims to protect consumers and police corporate power, into an enforcer of President Donald Trump’s social and political agendas, according to more than a dozen former colleagues, antitrust experts and acquaintances. With investigations and hearings that inform the country’s policies on culture war issues, critics have said Ferguson is testing the agency’s regulatory limits.

Many of the agency’s chairs have mirrored the political priorities of the presidents who appointed them. But Ferguson has made his connection unusually explicit, referring to the agency as the “Trump-Vance FTC.” In doing so, the 39-year-old could imperil the agency’s appearance of political impartiality when bringing lawsuits, critics said, making them harder to win. Some fear Ferguson could use his regulatory might to pursue Trump’s foes or to crack down on causes important to the left.

“There have been other chairs of the agency, other commissioners, who’ve said the president’s views are highly influential,” said William Kovacic, a former Republican chair of the FTC. “But it’s the first time in the agency’s history that we’ve had a chair that has so completely aligned his program and his position with that of the president.”

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Ferguson is part of a group of Trump-appointed regulators who have curried favor with the president by taking up his favored causes. Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, recently leveraged his agency’s power to urge more scrutiny of liberal comments made by programs including “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The View.”

Ferguson, who became chair of the FTC in January, opened an inquiry into social media’s censorship of political speech after Trump and other conservatives complained for years they were targeted. The agency approved a merger of two advertising companies on the unusual condition that they abstain from politically motivated advertising boycotts. He also established a task force to investigate issues that harm workers and specifically highlighted questions about whether companies have colluded on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Ferguson has taken a more pro-business stance than his Democratic predecessor, saying in March that he wanted to “get out of the way quickly” when mergers and acquisitions don’t pose legal concerns.

“No one voted for me,” Ferguson said in a July interview. “They voted for Donald Trump by the tens and tens and tens of millions after his enemies shot him in the face.”

“It’s important that we be very upfront when we say, ‘I am a law enforcer and I will follow the law,’” he added. “But the policy priorities are set by the man the people chose to run this government.”

Ferguson embraced Trump’s expansive view of executive power after the president removed two Democratic members of the five-person commission in March. On Monday, the administration argued before the Supreme Court that the firings were legal, a position Ferguson supports.

Ferguson, who was born and raised in Virginia and hunts white-tailed deer in his free time, has described a yearslong political journey that aligned him with Trump’s view that big companies inappropriately promote liberal politics.

After graduating with a law degree from the University of Virginia, Ferguson clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court in 2016 and 2017. He earned the trust of top Republicans as a lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee starting in 2018 and for Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky lawmaker who was then the Senate majority leader.

“He’s always one step ahead,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chaired the Judiciary Committee.

For much of his life, Ferguson was “a conservative that had relatively strong deference for markets and for market actors,” he said on a Bloomberg podcast this year. That changed after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, when companies started calling him to push for police reform, “leveraging that economic power to accomplish social and political objectives.”

During that period, Ferguson — who grew up Presbyterian and has invoked his Christian faith as a guidepost for how he does his job — grappled with his beliefs and decided to convert to Catholicism.

He now sometimes attends Mass with Thomas, three people with knowledge of their relationship said. A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not respond to a message seeking comment from the justice.

Ferguson joined the FTC last year as a Republican commissioner appointed by President Joe Biden. He parked a large pickup in the agency’s garage that featured license plates with the “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan, which conservatives use to show opposition to government intrusion.

He quickly accused Lina Khan, the Democratic chair pursuing an agenda of corporate trustbusting, of overreach.

In January, shortly before Ferguson became chair, FTC staff members briefed him on an investigation into whether the video app Snapchat’s artificial intelligence chatbot could harm young users, according to Joe Simonson, an agency spokesperson. Khan’s team was considering a legal settlement that would give the FTC oversight of the material the chatbot generated.

Ferguson was concerned the legal agreement would open the door to the FTC policing speech online. He posed a question: Would it be a concern if a chatbot told a child experiencing gender dysphoria that gender-affirming care was risky?

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That disconcerted some employees because Ferguson had invoked a politically contentious topic in a conversation about an unrelated case, according to two people familiar with the conversation who spoke anonymously because the investigation was confidential. Simonson said Ferguson had been stress-testing the free speech implications with an example challenging liberal views.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has endorsed gender-affirming care, which can include therapy, puberty blockers, hormones and surgery, but it is reviewing medical research about the benefits and long-term risks of the treatments.

When first asked about the exchange in July, Ferguson said the agency would open an investigation into who had shared information about the meeting, adding that he knew “every single person who was in that room.” (The agency ultimately referred questions about the disclosure to its inspector general, according to Simonson.)

Trump chose Ferguson to lead the FTC after the election, citing the regulator’s “proven record of standing up to Big Tech censorship.”

In February, the agency opened an inquiry into how online platforms can restrict access “based on the content of the users’ speech or their affiliations.” The request for public comments drew more than 2,800 responses.

In May, Ferguson opened an investigation into whether Media Matters, a nonprofit that has played a prominent role in liberal politics, broke the law by colluding with advertisers. It came after Elon Musk, owner of X, accused the group of attempting to damage its ties to advertisers.

Media Matters sued to challenge the agency’s subpoena, saying the investigation violated its First Amendment rights and exceeded the FTC’s legal mandate. A judge blocked the inquiry in August. The FTC appealed the ruling and lost.

Last month, the FTC also lost an antitrust lawsuit accusing Meta of acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp to illegally cement its monopoly. The agency blamed the judge, citing articles of impeachment filed against him by a congressional Republican over his decision to block the administration’s attempted deportation of migrants to El Salvador.

Ferguson said the FTC had always been political.

“My predecessor was on the stage with the president all the time talking about his priorities, but then would constantly refer to themselves as independent,” he said. “I think we’re being very honest about the constitutional framework, which is I am an inferior officer of the United States.”

Ferguson runs the FTC alongside one other Republican commissioner, Mark Meador. Of the commission’s five seats, only three can be held by one party under federal law. A 1935 Supreme Court ruling has meant that presidents cannot remove commissioners over policy differences.

Trump’s decision to fire Democratic commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya this year has left Ferguson without opposition.

The Supreme Court said in September that Trump could remove Slaughter while the case proceeded. A ruling in favor of Trump could affect other agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the FCC.

“No American should want an FTC, an SEC, an FCC that believes it is independent of the will of the American people,” Ferguson said. “That is terrifying.”