The Senate approves Gail Slater, President Trump's pick to lead the DOJ's antitrust unit, by a 78-19 vote; she has been critical of power in the tech industry
for what it's worth, filling the job more than six months sooner than in the first Trump administration. @mrddmia : Statement on Bipartisan Senate Confirmation of Gail Slater as Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust: Congratulations to Gail Slater, my good friend, on her bipartisan Senate confirmation to lead the Trump 47 Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Gail Slater is a brilliant @mrddmia : Translation: Gail Slater has a broad, bipartisan mandate to hold Big Tech accountable. @jonathancohn : Again, Democrats, if we're in a constitutional crisis, don't vote to confirm Trump's nominees, especially not Assistant AGs. Disappointed with @SenWarren here voting to advance Trump's Assistant AG pick Gail Slater. [image]
Context & Ripple Effects
The post follows the Senate's 2021 confirmation of Google critic competition lawyer Jonathan Kanter to the same role, indicating that skepticism of concentrated technology power has persisted across administrations even as its political rationale has shifted.
Before this nomination was finalized, Slater had been identified as a leading contender for a senior competition-enforcement post alongside former DOJ and FTC enforcer Mark Meador in reporting on the incoming antitrust team.
First-order effects
- The confirmation clears Slater to set the Antitrust Division's enforcement priorities, giving companies facing federal competition scrutiny a leader publicly associated with concern over concentrated tech power.
- The 78-19 vote gives her a notably bipartisan confirmation mandate, strengthening the political footing for the division's work at the start of her tenure.
Second-order effects
- Large technology platforms and their deal, product, and policy teams will have added reason to treat DOJ competition risk as an active management issue rather than a purely partisan transition risk.
- The appointment raises pressure on industry advocates and corporate legal teams to engage a DOJ whose technology-policy posture may overlap with populist concerns as well as conventional competition arguments.
Third-order effects
- Together with the prior Kanter confirmation, this points to a potentially durable cross-administration willingness to place technology-market concentration at the center of federal antitrust leadership, although the scope of actual enforcement will depend on the division's cases and resources.
- Later coverage of Slater's departure as a win for tech giants underscores that this posture remains sensitive to leadership changes, rather than being fully institutionalized.
The trend: US technology antitrust is becoming less cleanly partisan, with successive DOJ leadership choices sustaining scrutiny of concentrated platform power under different political coalitions.