Lina Khan—FTC lost every major merger challenge including Microsoft-Activision and Meta-Within during Khan's tenure
Over 2.5 years, the FTC under Khan's leadership lost every single merger challenge it brought through litigation without a single win. Courts rejected FTC attempts to block Microsoft's $69B acquisition of Activision Blizzard (July 2023, judge called case 'bald assertion') and Meta's acquisition of Within (February 2023). The FTC also lost challenges to Illumina-Grail merger. Courts found the FTC was 'weak on the facts,' could not demonstrate consumer harms, and relied on 'novel antitrust theories that courts did not recognize.'
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antitrust & Competition | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Government Ethics & Anti-Corruption | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Federal judge rejected FTC's Microsoft-Activision challenge as 'bald assertion'
In July 2023, a federal judge dismissed the FTC's attempt to block Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, finding the deal would expand access and that the FTC's case amounted to 'bald assertion.' This was one of multiple major merger challenges the FTC lost under Khan's leadership.