Wish I could upvote this more than once. This is very trenchant insight. I wonder if future corporate mergers will be timed with appropriate presidential administrations and their appointees.

My argument for this merger going forward is primarily one of precedence. I strongly believe that most legal questions should be already settled - one should be able to look at established precedence to identify the most likely result, and if precedence is upended, then it needs to thoroughly establish a new legal paradigm that allows prediction of most future cases. Given the recent history of mega-mergers, it should be safe for executives to assume that similar mergers would be approved.

If the most relevant criteria for whether the FTC permits a merger is “the ideology of whoever is in charge” then we have major problems. (And yes, I know this can and does apply to the US Supreme Court…)

I don’t think a merger of this scale should occur. It reduces competition in the marketplace and is unlikely to provide any benefits to consumers.

However, that said, I’m not sure blocking a merger like this makes sense in a world where Disney was allowed to acquire a significant percentage of pop culture, or Warner Bros. Discovery can own DC Comics, CNN, HBO, and of course the titular movie studio and television networks. The mega-merger barn door isn’t just open, it got ripped off of its hinges.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that the availability of fucking Call of Duty, specifically, has been the subject of top level scrutiny by regulators in multiple nations when there was nary a peep when Disney acquired Lucasfilm.