The Next Era Of Antitrust — ft. DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter

Ed and Scott open the show by discussing why European defense stocks surged following Trump's meeting with Zelensky, the announcement of a U. S. crypto reserve, and the latest tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico. Then Jonathan Kanter, former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U. S. Department of Justice, joins the show to break down what antitrust enforcement could look like under the Trump administration. He explains why healthcare should be a top priority for regulators, pulls back the curtain on how lobbyists try to influence antitrust cases, and gives an update on the ongoing Google antitrust lawsuit. Finally, Jonathan weighs in on the growing monopoly concerns in AI and highlights which industries are most in need of tougher antitrust scrutiny. Subscribe to the Prof G Markets newsletter Order "The Algebra of Wealth," out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Follow Scott on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them? That's bull spend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow. Yeah, it it wasn't.

• 0:17Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 02

  Payday bars have a bone to pick with the other candy bars. Enough with the toppings and layers and stuff, kay? Payday bars are just salty, crunchy peanuts and sweet caramel. Delicious. Payday Peanut Caramel Bar.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com slash superior access to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:15Scott Galloway?

  Today's number $55,000. That's how much a lifetime membership costs at Miami's New Harbor Club, which offers a private speakeasy and weekly backgammon tournaments. Ed, what's the difference between a garbanzo bean and a chickpea?

• 1:29Ed Elson?

  I think I know this one.

• 1:30Scott Galloway?

  I'm not going to pay a garbanzo to bean on my face.

• 1:44Ed Elson?

  The delivery was wrong to bean on your face.

• 1:47Scott Galloway?

  Oh dude, shut the fuck up. Just laugh and and tell me how hilarious I am. Not when the delivery is completely wrong. Wait, it's, it's, I won't pay someone 50 bucks to garbanzo on my bean, but I will pay 50 bucks for a chick to pee on me. You get it? This is our worst opening ever. Your fault, totally your fault. No, not my fault. Do you not understand the corporate world? When your boss makes a bad joke, you laugh hilariously, no matter, oh my, oh, it's so, it's funny because it's true. My job is to protect my boss. I don't want you to humiliate yourself in front of our audience. Let's talk a little bit about private members' clubs, which is my new hobby. You want to know the story of my life, Ed? Yes, please. I finally get the ultimate hookup.

• 2:30Scott Galloway?

  The best room in Europe, I don't know if it's in Europe, best room in London is Chiltern Firehouse. They have a bar there that is so well done, the DJ is on fire and they have total obnoxious face control. And I wouldn't even go there, there was no way I could get in. And I went with some friends and this nice woman came up and started talking to me, recognized me from the pod. She's like, I'm starting a podcast, would you be willing to have coffee? And I said, yes. We had coffee, we became friendly and she said, here's my WhatsApp, whenever you want to come in, here's my number. I'm like, oh my God, I fucking, I am Charlie from Willy Wonka. I have just gotten the golden ticket. And for about the last six months, whenever I was with friends and they'd be like, oh, wouldn't it be great? Well, let's go to Chiltern Firehouse, does anyone know anyone, does anyone have a hookup?

• 3:14Scott Galloway?

  And I'm like, oh, no problem, I'll handle it. No problem, I'll handle it. And boom, right in, hello Scott, loved it there, loved it there. Hot people everywhere, which is not easy in the UK. It's not easy. It's not like New York or LA where they just let in a bunch of Uber drivers who are looking for their SAG aftercard and they're hot. No, it's not easy. You are definitely like, you've got some crazy pig hunting for truffles in the middle of some forest somewhere. I don't know how I come up with that analogy. Anyway, the best room, I would bet in the UK. And I am totally finally fucking hooked up. And you know what happened? Burned down. It burned down. Yeah, I saw that. I had serious schadenfreude on that because obviously I've never gotten in.

• 3:58Scott Galloway?

  And I'm not exaggerating, no less than a dozen people are like, sent me video footage and they're like, are you okay?

• 4:07Scott Galloway?

  I'm not exaggerating. I think it burned down on a Thursday.

• 4:09Ed Elson?

  So sorry if you're lost, Scott.

• 4:10Scott Galloway?

  No one died, so we can joke about it. Whatever. Andrew Balazs is already super fucking rich. And the insurance will pay for it. So people, I'm not exaggerating. No less than a dozen people send me video footage and they're like, are you all right? I was there the night before. I was there at the closing party. We just didn't know it was the closing party. Anyways, the new place is a place called Soho Muse.

• 4:30Ed Elson?

  Yeah, I've heard of this. By the way, we really need to put a moratorium on the members' club stocks because the problem is both you and I are irrationally obsessed with this stuff in a way that's very unhealthy and strange.

• 4:43Scott Galloway?

  That's because I'm a narcissist.

• 4:44Ed Elson?

  So I mean, I could talk about this with you all day, but you know, we really gotta.

• 4:48Scott Galloway?

  Well, just let me finish up here. This is why the audience comes here. They just can't get enough of Scott. Anyways, so.

• 4:56Scott Galloway?

  So I hear the new hot place is Soho Muse. So I call him. Oh, no problem. I'm like a global member and I never go and they're like, oh, hello. No, we haven't gone out with invites to the, you know, and I'm like, so I can't come tonight? Like, no, not yet. We haven't. So even the Soho House has said, we have so many non-aspirational members to try and feed the public company earnings call that we've had to create a new Soho House that Soho House members don't have access to. So here I am, back to who I really am, and that is not able to get into the, the hot place. The world, the order of the universe has been restored. I am now again on the outside looking in it.

• 5:33Ed Elson?

  I'm sure you'll get into Soho Muse, but by the time you get in, there's going to be another Soho Muse.

• 5:37Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, probably. All right. Enough of that shit. Get to the headlines.

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Now is the time to fly. I hope you have plenty of the well at all.

• 5:49Ed Elson?

  European defence stocks hit their highest level in four years after President Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky put pressure on European leaders to boost defence spending. The stocks Europe Aerospace and Defence Index rose 8%, while London's FTSE reached a record high. Trump is planning to create a national crypto reserve that would include Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Cardano. It's the first time he's proposed actively buying crypto in regular install. Rather than simply stockpiling the assets, Bitcoin and Ether jumped more than 10% on that news. And finally, the 25 cent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada are officially in effect after hopes for a last minute deal fell through. Trump said there was, quote, "no room left to negotiate with the two countries."

• 6:34Ed Elson?

  All three major indices fell on that news, with the S and P 500 suffering its worst day of the year. Okay, Scott, we have three Trump headlines. I know we said we were going to try to talk a little bit less about Trump, but the trouble is, politics and markets, they are simply connected. And these are the biggest stories that are moving the markets right now, and they all have to do with Trump. And I think that's probably by design. Let's start with your thoughts on European defence stocks rallying after that rattling meeting we saw between Trump and Zelensky last week.

• 7:07Scott Galloway?

  Russia is a fairly small economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Canada. So you want to kiss the ass, you want to give a lap dance to a small economy and alienate these dependable, prosperous relationships with economies in Europe that combined are 15 to 17 times the size of the gas station posing as an economy called Russia. So this is incredibly stupid. Now, what could go right? I love what Josh Brown said, what could go right on when he co-hosted with you? These nations are bigger than Russia. Spain is almost as big as Russia. Combined, they are a bigger economic force. And quite frankly, they've become lazy and dependent upon a rich uncle,

• 7:51Scott Galloway?

  who is no longer, who's gone fucking senile, has become emotionally and mentally unstable. And them recognizing they have to fight their own fights, but also waking up and realizing, you know, I'm pretty goddamn strong and dangerous myself. If they massively increase their military budgets, which I think they're going to do, and start taking leadership cues from their own leaders, and they unify, get rid of all the arguing and the bullshit, and they become a union again, there's absolutely no reason why they can't push back on Russia themselves. In addition, I think this is a starting gun, and this was one of our predictions at the end of last year, before we even knew this, for European stocks. If you look at military spending...

• 8:33Scott Galloway?

  It's expensive in the short run, but there is the potential for dramatic technology spillover that realizes or is registered in huge economic gains in the markets. Apple and Google are basically adjuncts or tech layers of innovation put on top of innovation that was developed during military or war spending. GPS, Apple's basically GPS technology with a consumer layer on it that was developed during the Cold War such that we could put an ICBM in Putin's pocket within 10 feet of its designated target. If you look at the internet, for God's sakes, it was the US military decided, a defense

• 9:13Scott Galloway?

  department decided we needed a means of nodeless means of communication for after the nuclear attack from Russia, that was DARPA, which became the internet. So I believe Europe is going to be a union again. I believe they will massively increase the military spending, which will result in stimulus and possible technology spillover. So I think there is a real silver lining here, and I am super excited about European getting the jolt it needed to move out of the house and realizing that they've got, they should start commanding the space they occupy.

• 9:45Ed Elson?

  I'm completely with you on the silver lining here. And just if we look at the numbers, so last year Russia spent, if you adjust for their purchasing power in defense, they spent $462 billion on defense last year. All of Europe, meanwhile, spent only $457 billion, so less than Russia. And if you look at that as a percentage of their GDP, the difference becomes even more stark. So Russia spent 7% of their GDP on defense. That number is expected to increase this year to 7.5% or higher. And then, on average, Europe spent 2.2% of its GDP. So yeah, Europe can spend more. Trump wants them to go to 5% of GDP. He wants to make that a minimum. That's very unlikely.

• 10:29Ed Elson?

  I think for a lot of these countries, it's just not possible for them economically. But I think Europe has gotten the message loud and clear. They're on their own now. I think we're going to see double-digit percentage growth in defense spending from all of the major European governments, which means that these defense companies will be in very, very high demand. We saw shares in Rheinmetall, which is Germany's largest defense company. Those rose 15%. Britain's BAE Systems rose 14%. Leonardo, a defense company from Italy, that rose 17%. So the markets are basically telling us, European governments are going to significantly increase their defense spending, and that's going to benefit these defense companies. I wouldn't invest in those defense companies myself,

• 11:12Ed Elson?

  because I think the market is reacting a little too over enthusiastically to this, what happened last week. I think they're expecting these budgets to transform overnight, but in reality, these transitions happen quite slowly and quite steadily. They have to get through governments, they have to figure out these supply chains. I mean, reconstituting an entire army is not an overnight job. But there is no doubt, Europe will be bolstering its militaries. And I do, I like the silver lining you point out there, and I think I agree with it. Let's shift to crypto, and this new US crypto reserve. So our government will be buying Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana, and Cardano in regular installments. I find

• 11:55Ed Elson?

  this quite ironic, because you know, you think about the conversation we just had about Ukraine, where America's position is, sure, you need help, but we can't afford it. We've got our own problems. Meanwhile, we can afford buying up billions of dollars of useless cryptocurrencies that provide no benefit to the real economy whatsoever, which I find ridiculous, the fact that these headlines are happening in the same weekend.

• 12:23Scott Galloway?

  The idea that we are going to increase our deficits such that we can artificially raise the prices of an asset class, the majority of which is controlled like every other asset class by very wealthy people, including the head of a VC fund that is the advisor to Trump, this is pure corruption in its most naked form. And

• 12:50Scott Galloway?

  People will say, and I gotta give it to them, well, the Democrats have just been doing this slowly, more elegantly and more covertly with lobbyists. Trump has just decided, fuck that, I'm just gonna steal right in the light of day. But that is, it is insane that we have an individual who is the AI or the crypto czar encouraging the president to spend your money in the form of deficits, increased deficits, such that he can dramatically increase his wealth and the wealth of other people my age that have the money or have already invested in these assets. This is kleptocracy meets intergenerational theft.

• 13:30Ed Elson?

  Yeah, the person you're talking about there is David Sacks, of course, who is the AI and crypto czar. He is a significant crypto investor, both individually and through his VC firm. And I do want to just play you a clip from the All In podcast. And this was recorded, I think, a couple of years ago.

• 13:49Scott Galloway?

  Really? You mean the All Grifter podcast?

• 13:52Ed Elson?

  Yeah, the All Grift podcast. And basically, David and his boys are talking about their positions in Solana, which is one of these cryptocurrencies that is going to be included in the National Crypto Reserve. I'd like to get your reaction to this.

• 14:05Speaker 06

  You better clear that Solana position. What's your lockup? 24 months? Fuck no, he's trying to sell it to me on tax basis. Yeah, of course he is. We're negotiating discounts. I just had the founder.

• 14:15Ed Elson?

  Hey, you're fucking the whole thing up.

• 14:17Speaker 06

  Bro, you don't, you don't think-

• 14:18Ed Elson?

  Oh, Ponzi scheme? I'm holding, I'm holding.

• 14:21Speaker 06

  You think I buy hundreds of millions of dollars of anything without a discount? Everything is a discount. Everything's discounted. You want to clear that position in an LLC?

• 14:28Ed Elson?

  Are you saying I got a billion dollars of Solana?

• 14:30Speaker 06

  No, bro, I'm saying I have one. But, you know, I brought it at a discount.

• 14:33Ed Elson?

  But you're holding, correct?

• 14:35Speaker 06

  Ish.

• 14:36Ed Elson?

  Yeah, okay. Yeah, me too. David Sacks did sell his individual crypto position before he joined the government. So he doesn't own Solana anymore. But his VC still owns stakes in these crypto startups. And of course, all of his friends are big crypto investors. So yes, he's not enriching himself directly with this move, but he is certainly enriching himself indirectly, and he is for sure enriching his friends. So I just want to get that argument out of the way.

• 15:08Scott Galloway?

  But doesn't he have huge investments in crypto-related companies?

• 15:10Ed Elson?

  He has huge investments in crypto-related companies, exactly.

• 15:13Scott Galloway?

  That is a direct enrichment. That's like saying I don't buy Google keywords, but I own Google, so I'm not directly benefiting off of the government buying 10 billion.

• 15:23Ed Elson?

  Well, this is the argument these guys like to make. So I'm just, I'm steel manning their corrupt position.

• 15:28Scott Galloway?

  Look, I think David is an intelligent guy. I, you know, when I've seen clips of him on YouTube, I think he makes interesting points. He and I have different politics, but I think he's at least intellectually honest about his politics. But he's essentially part of this kleptocracy that wink, wink, I'll become your AI czar, and I'm going to use taxpayer, the taxpayer purse to enrich myself. And that used to be not allowed. The more existential stupidity here is that you are essentially trying to come up with another default currency. And the, the carrier strike force that is the invisible carrier strike force that is probably more devastating than even the SS Gerald Ford carrier strike force is the US dollar.

• 16:13Scott Galloway?

  The fact that we can track the flows and control the flows of the default currency globally, and it is very difficult for anyone to do business when we put sanctions on them and we get to see where money is going and coming, is such an incredible advantage. And we are purposely ourselves trying to undermine the acceptance and ubiquity of the default currency by creating a second with crypto? I mean, okay, measles surrender and just fucking stupid is the new American brand. Your thoughts, Ed?

• 16:42Ed Elson?

  I think that applies specifically to Bitcoin. And, you know, I'm, I'm willing to hear the Bitcoin argument out. But yeah, it is ultimately a bet against the US dollar. So why would the US government be betting against its own currency? This is completely different, though, because this is a ton of other cryptocurrencies in addition to the Bitcoin. So now we have our government actively recommending individual tickers to the public. And these aren't even companies. These are assets that generate no revenue, no cash flows, no profits, assets whose value is entirely dependent on the greater fool theory. I mean, this is literally the equivalent of the US government creating a national beanie baby reserve. There is literally no difference, and it benefits no one other than the people.

• 17:25Ed Elson?

  Who already own Beanie Babies. And in this case, those are the people who are crypto investors, most of whom are in Silicon Valley and who are good friends with David Sacks, who is the guy who came up with this whole charade. You know, Elon keeps on talking about how the government is the biggest scam in history. That might be true now. This might actually be the biggest scam in history. Let's move on finally to tariffs. Your thoughts, Scott? This has been, I guess, a long time coming, but it is finally in effect, 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff on China. What happens now, Scott?

• 18:02Scott Galloway?

  It's simple. Our economy shrinks. Our costs go up, our exports go down. I mean, tariffs are taxes on the consumer. So whenever Donald Trump makes a really fucking stupid decision, they're like, oh, no, no, no, we can't defend it intellectually. So we're just going to say it's 4D chess and he gets it and we don't. And that latest argument is, oh, it's a negotiating ploy. This is just dumb and it costs money to spin up these tariffs and then spin them down and we lose credibility. It's economic warfare against unbelievably big economies that have been great allies. I think in economic history, we're going to say our entry into Southeast Asia, our invasion of Iraq, Brexit and these tariffs will be seen as the biggest

• 18:47Scott Galloway?

  self-inflicted wounds in history unless they are merely rectified. And even then, it's just like, you look stupid. Well, I'm, I'm leaving you. I'm leaving you. Just kidding. I'm back. Well, okay, that takes a toll on the relationship.

• 19:00Ed Elson?

  Yeah. Just to go through the numbers that we can expect if these remain intact. It's expected that prices across the board will rise 0.7% according to estimates. The price of certain other goods will be even higher, for example, fruits and vegetables, which we largely get from Mexico. Also, smartphones, they're expected to increase in price by more than $200. GDP growth is expected to fall. Economists are expecting a 0.6% decline. Interest rates are expected to remain higher for longer as expected. Corporate profits are expected to fall unless, of course, Corporations just pass all of the costs on to the consumers, which is of course entirely possible. All of this in concert, that is why the S and P and the Dow

• 19:44Ed Elson?

  and the Nasdaq all had certainly one of their worst days in a long, long time. And basically, all of the gains that we saw in the stock market since the election, it's all been erased because of this decision. What's the upside in all of this? I don't know. I mean, as I've said, this is very much like Brexit. You shoot yourself in the foot and you label it patriotism because you decide, oh, we're better off alone. But every economic study said Brexit would be a disaster, but people just loved the emotional argument. It was so compelling. They loved this sort of fake reboot version of independence. And now the UK has its tail between its legs. Most of the country agrees. It was a giant

• 20:26Ed Elson?

  mistake. And I think, as you say, I think a similar thing is happening here. All the ingredients look the same to me. So my prediction is quite simple. Sounds like it's the same as yours. This is Brexit 2.0. People feel very patriotic and then we turn around and we see all the damage that we did to ourselves. We realize we buried ourselves for no good reason at all. We'll be right back after the break for a conversation with Jonathan Cantor. And if you're enjoying the show so far, be sure to give Prof G Market a follow wherever you get your podcasts.

• 21:03Speaker 07

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• 21:33Speaker 02

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• 21:50Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior like beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 22:24Ed Elson?

  Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Jonathan Cantor, former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on Prof G Markets.

• 22:35Jonathan Kanter?

  Great to be here.

• 22:38Ed Elson?

  So we are nearly 50 days into Trump's second term. We've had a lot of attention on tariffs, on foreign policy, on immigration. What we haven't been hearing that much about, though, is antitrust. It feels like it's been kind of outshined by these other issues. So I'm really excited that we can discuss this with you today. For those that don't know, Jonathan is probably the number one expert in America on antitrust. I mean, he worked for a number of years at FTC, was a partner at several top law firms. Then he led the antitrust division for the DOJ under Joe Biden until he resigned in December of last year.

• 23:19Ed Elson?

  So Jonathan, give us the state of play of antitrust under Trump at the moment. What has happened thus far? And how have things changed since you left?

• 23:30Jonathan Kanter?

  So we're in a wait and see mode, but I'm, I will say I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to see continuity. Ultimately, personnel is policy and the two people that President Trump nominated for the Department of Justice, my old job, and the Chair of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, are both enforcement minded. And so what they do will be different from how we enforce the law. But what, what, what antitrust does is it touches on this sort of weird. Area in Washington of policy overlap where there is more of a realignment around antitrust and economic populism and controlling corporate power for the benefit of workers, for the benefit of consumers, for the benefit of entrepreneurs. And I think we're likely

• 24:15Jonathan Kanter?

  to see that continue, at least to some degree, in this current administration.

• 24:19Ed Elson?

  And what is like the other side of the argument? I mean, so it sounds like where you land is tough in terms of antitrust, tough on regulation and enforcement. These new picks are probably in the same camp. And that's for the benefit of the public, basically. What is the other side of it? What could he have gone with otherwise?

• 24:38Jonathan Kanter?

  Let me just, if you don't mind me picking at that a little bit. I think I am not super pro-regulation. So my belief is that I believe I'm a capitalist. I believe in markets. I believe that ultimately, free markets and competitive markets can yield better outcomes for society and that are a much better alternative to invasive regulation. And so sometimes regulation and rules are necessary, but I would much rather have markets sorted out through competition in the first instance. That's ultimately the theory that I had and animated our approach to antitrust enforcement. And I think it actually reflects the theory that animates the approach to antitrust enforcement in the current administration, but we'll have to wait and see. The alternative to that is a neoliberal view, one that really

• 25:20Jonathan Kanter?

  dominated in the era of Reagan and George W. Bush, the Clinton administration, to some degree, part of the Obama administration, which is ultimately that mergers are efficient, monopolies are efficient, and ultimately, we should just regulate the big companies rather than stopping them from getting big or maintaining their bigness. And I think that view is pretty much out of fashion right now in Washington.

• 25:44Ed Elson?

  So if you had to outline the top priorities for this administration when it comes to antitrust, maybe one or two things they definitely want to accomplish when you look at what they've done so far, what do you think those priorities would be?

• 26:00Jonathan Kanter?

  Taking them at their own word, I think those priorities are big tech. Workers and what remains to be seen, but I think what should be among the highest priorities is healthcare.

• 26:12Ed Elson?

  Interesting. Why do you think that healthcare is such an important priority right now?

• 26:15Jonathan Kanter?

  The healthcare markets today remind me a lot of big tech in 2016 or 2017, where we've seen this sort of gradual, if not alarming, march toward concentration and convergence around a handful of conglomerate platforms that have outsized control in the healthcare system. And there is now a greater appreciation that those integrated companies are essentially emerging as platforms unto themselves and control our healthcare system. And so whether you're a doctor or a nurse, a pharmacist, another insurance company, you kind of have to plug into those healthcare platforms. And they're exerting a massive amount of control and it constitutes a massive spend for our economy.

• 26:59Jonathan Kanter?

  And so I think the degree of concern, the degree of concentration, the degree of control and the impact on our economy are all the ingredients that usually point to greater antitrust enforcement and greater interest by business in seeing antitrust enforcement. One of the things I noticed when I was at the government was that there are lots of businesses who want to invest in fixing our healthcare system. They want to invest in improving the ability to get access to pharmaceuticals for less money. The insurance system is completely bloated and bureaucratic, not at the government level, but at the private sector level. And there's a great interest of business to disrupt that, to compete, but they can't break in, in part due to the moats that surround these large healthcare platforms.

• 27:44Ed Elson?

  I think one of the other big issues that a lot of people are talking about is just the power of lobbying. That's certainly important in the cultural conversation around healthcare, the idea that politicians are basically being paid off, or at least, you know, these healthcare companies are investing millions, maybe billions into lobbying such that these regulations can work in their favor. You served in government for

• 28:09Ed Elson?

  Three or four years, you can now speak freely, I assume. How bad is lobbying in government? Is it something that you experienced yourself?

• 28:18Jonathan Kanter?

  It's everywhere, right? But so you have to, when you take a job like the one I took, you have to decide you don't give a shit. And ultimately, I'm a lawyer and I have clients and I viewed my client as the public. And I was gonna, you know, you know, jump in front of a train if I had to in order to protect my client, which was the public. That's my philosophy toward representing companies in the legal area. And so that's what we did. And so we, if companies came in and made sensible arguments and presented facts, we would listen. But the idea of playing politics, going to the media, going after us personally, going to Congress and trying to interfere with legitimate antitrust enforcement, we tune that out.

• 28:58Jonathan Kanter?

  But I would say that there's a real risk that that kind of lobbying and PR campaigns and public affair campaigns can take hold. And it's really dangerous when it does. Companies pour a ton of money into this. I'll also say that, you know, the bigger they get, the more weight they can throw on Washington. And one of the things that I think people inside Washington understand, sometimes it's not appreciated outside, is that it's really hard to do something. It's really easy to get people to do nothing, right? And so most of the money that gets invested is not into solving the problem and fixing the problem. Most of the lobbying money goes into throwing sand in the gears against any effort to actually make things better. And so you have to have a tremendous amount of will.

• 29:43Jonathan Kanter?

  You have to have a tremendous amount of courage and perseverance in order to actually make a difference. That's something that we did, but it's really frigging hard.

• 29:52Ed Elson?

  The whole lobbying industry feels so obscure and strange. In a lot of ways, I just don't really understand how it actually works. So just at a very basic level, what does lobbying actually look like? Is it a meeting with someone and they present all the arguments as to why something should or should not be done? Why is it so compelling? And why does it push politicians so far in either direction?

• 30:19Jonathan Kanter?

  The number of different dimensions that go into this. First, there's kind of the straight traditional lobbying, which is I'm gonna, I'm gonna pour a ton of money into a campaign, right? And people who are running for office, especially if it's every two years, need a constant influx of cash, right? And so they're trying to figure out, how do they come up with a policy agenda that allows them to stay in office? And it's very easy to rationalize that, well, if I compromise and get enough donors, then I can stay in office and do other good things, right? But that can easily tilt into a very dangerous place. That's one. But it's more than just that. Most of the money that gets reported as lobbying is really just for that going up to Capitol Hill and meeting with a senator or congressman. That's not where most of the money goes, though. Most of the money

• 31:00Jonathan Kanter?

  goes into PR campaigns. It goes into funding university professors who write favorable articles that then they can cite to into their, in their PR campaigns. It's planning stories and getting people to talk on podcasts and, and this insidious layer of, of operatives who you don't realize are speaking on behalf of big business, but are, but are there to seed ideas and promote their, their clients' interests, often not disclosing who they work for, who, who paid for their, their, their stuff. I can't tell you how many times I heard the same arguments from the, these grassroots public advocacy organizations

• 31:43Jonathan Kanter?

  that are just front groups for the same handful of big companies. They're everywhere. They're pouring a ton of money into it, and it far outstrips the amount that they're disclosing in their, in their lobbying forms.

• 31:53Ed Elson?

  I mean, it sounds like, you know, you are fighting against that to the best of your ability. It's possible now that the DOJ will be, have its funding cut with Doge. I mean, what do you think of that? Do you think that Doge will target the DOJ? And if so, what would that mean for antitrust?

• 32:14Jonathan Kanter?

  It would be devastating. Let me just give you a little bit of context, right? So when I, the, and I ran the antitrust division at the Department of Justice. We were in charge of antitrust enforcement. We were about 800 people. That's about 250 fewer people than we had in 1979. We were smaller than 1979. But I will also tell you this in terms of efficiency. We ran at zero cost to taxpayers and each year during my tenure, we had a budget surplus. And we relied on fees, merger fees, to fund the entire antitrust division, even though that's not what we did. So taxpayers got a great deal. And during that time, we brought cases against Google. We brought cases against Apple, Ticketmaster, American Airlines, Visa, United Healthcare,

• 32:56Jonathan Kanter?

  RealPage and the big landlords, the big meat packers. We touched through a case involving a company called Agrostats. We brought some of the most effective, significant antitrust cases. We did it at zero cost to the taxpayers and we did it at a budget surplus while at the same time investing in things like AI and other tools to make ourselves more efficient. If there's a real interest in making government more efficient, then there's a real conversation to have. But I don't believe that's what's happening. I think what's happening right now is attempt to dismantle our government infrastructure because they don't want it there.

• 33:29Ed Elson?

  Are there any sectors of the government that you believe actually could benefit from budget cuts or from at least being inspected by some, some form of government efficiency oversight?

• 33:39Jonathan Kanter?

  I think they could all benefit from being more efficient. So I think the amount of process and sometimes norms that have good intentions often create debilitating bureaucracy. And so I will tell you, sure, right? And in fact, I was an agent of change and I came in and despite those headwinds, we were able to move things forward, change policies, change the composition of our workforce, hire more experts, invest in more technology. There are plenty of things you can do to make it more efficient. I will say this, though. If you wanted to address efficiency in government spending, employees, federal employees are last place you'd probably start. They're a sliver of the federal budget.

• 34:23Jonathan Kanter?

  Just from an employment perspective, I think four fifths of government employees reside outside the DC area. One third are veterans. And that's before you factor in all the money that goes into funding employers like state universities and hospitals, particularly in the Midwest and the South, that are themselves the largest employers in their states. The federal government is the largest employer in the US. So, one, firing people wholesale indiscriminately without regard for whether they are talented or whether they are lower wage than someone who's been there a long time is not the way to improve efficiency and lower cost. You wanted a lower cost, the place you'd start would be government contractors. Massive amounts of money, fraud, waste and abuse

• 35:08Jonathan Kanter?

  is often in private government contractors who are overcharging the government. You talk about Medicare, for example. There have been studies by the Wall Street Journal and reports about massive billions upon billions of dollars in overcharging due to things called upcoding, which is when an insurance company goes in, they take someone on Medicare, make them look really sick, and then they get to bill for all that, but then they don't necessarily reimburse for all that, and they keep the money in between. These are the kinds of areas you would focus if you were actually trying to make government less expensive and more efficient. There might be things you can do in terms of personnel and in terms of process, but that's not where you'd start

• 35:51Jonathan Kanter?

  if you were actually trying to address the problem. We'll be right back.

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• 37:21Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. Let's talk about some of the biggest antitrust cases that you brought. How you think they may play out in the next few years? So let's start with Google. You brought one of the biggest cases against Google for maintaining an illegal monopoly in the search market. The judge ruled in your favor. But of course, Google is now working on appealing that decision. Give us the state of play on Google. Where does that case stand today? And how do you expect that lawsuit will play out?

• 37:51Jonathan Kanter?

  So there are two cases against Google. One is the search case, which we won. And now is in what they call the remedies phase. So Google was found to be an illegal monopolist that illegally maintained its monopoly position in search, in part through spending tens of billions of dollars a year contracting with companies like Apple and others to say, you won't work with anyone else or there'll be limits on your ability to work with other folks. That case is really all about not just those contracts, but it's about the network effect. It's about the moat that protects Google's search business. We are in a moment in time, we're in a key inflection point where AI and other kinds of technologies may not be perfect replacements for search yet, but they are in shooting distance.

• 38:36Jonathan Kanter?

  They have the opportunity with the right nurturing to start creeping into those markets and then eventually hopefully take on some of those advertising markets, the search advertising markets. The remedies phase, really the current proposal on the table from DOJ, which I was a part of, is focused on making sure that those markets have the opportunity to develop. And the inflection point, the disruption that can come from things like AI, have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. There will be a trial in a few months to to address the remedy and we'll see how that goes. But it's a very important part of this. Second case involves what people call ad tech. That's the stuff that you don't realize is being bought and sold through Google.

• 39:20Jonathan Kanter?

  But when you go to any website or often an app and you see an ad, that is going through a stock like exchange or commodities like exchange that is run by Google. Google owns the exchange. They buy on the exchange and they sell on the exchange and they run the tools that run the infrastructure for publishers, news publishers and others who want to show ads. And that case is full of allegations that Google abused that position, manipulated the market and squeezed out competition. We finished the trial there and we're waiting for a decision.

• 39:52Ed Elson?

  One of the suggestions from the DOJ on the first case at least was a breakup, breaking Google up into several, or I guess two different companies. Specifically, it's the search product. Why do you think breaking up Google is the answer? And I'll just plug in a little bit of my opinion here. Why wouldn't simply making Google stop paying those contracts to Apple and other companies to be the default search engine? Why wouldn't that cut it? Why couldn't that be the remedy for this situation?

• 40:26Jonathan Kanter?

  So those are backward looking remedies, which are important, right? And so cutting off the the mechanism that a company use to dominate a market is really critical. But you know, if you focus on competition and if you focus on where the next competitive threat is going to come from, you have to look at the ingredients that go into creating competition. And in something like search, it's data, it's an index. It's the ability to monetize that through a sufficient base of advertisers, right? That's the kind of, those are the kinds of market dynamics that create the important infusion of capital. There are conflicts of interest when you're on all sides of a market, right? And so if you want to create competition, you have to look at, okay, what are the ingredients that a new competitor needs?

• 41:09Jonathan Kanter?

  Also, to what extent if if if conduct in an antitrust case has occurred over a year or two, it's much easier to fix, right? Because their company's not entrenched. But if the conduct occurred, for example, over 10 year period, which is what happened in the search case, then it's far more entrenched. The network effects, the scale effects, the learning by doing and the feedback loops are far more significant today than they would have been decade ago. And so if you want to create openings in competition, you have to think about a suite of remedies that are going to create the opportunities to compete and start addressing the scale advantages that were obtained through illegal behavior.

• 41:48Ed Elson?

  You also launched an investigation into Nvidia last year. And I'd like to get your views on Nvidia from an antitrust perspective more generally. But there was also just some confusion over that investigation because all these news outlets said that the DOJ had subpoenaed them, Nvidia. And then Nvidia said, no, we never received a subpoena. So I'd love to just get clarification from you. What happened there? Did Nvidia get a subpoena? Was that falsely reported on? Why was there so much confusion with that?

• 42:17Jonathan Kanter?

  Yeah, there are still some things. I'm free to speak about a lot of things now, but there are things about that are confidential that I can't talk about that occurred. But what I can say broadly is that AI is a really important focus. And when you think about the areas of competition or where competition can come into place in AI, you have to think both about the hardware infrastructure and you have to think about how that technology is deployed. And we're looking, we were looking at all of it. And I think my recommendation is that enforcers should continue looking at all of it. The way to focus in a market like this is look for the choke points, right? And then look for the exclusion. So where are the choke points in in AI? Well, let's start with the hardware. It's they're all pretty obvious, right? It's the equipment that's used to make it.

• 43:01Jonathan Kanter?

  It's ASML, right? In the Netherlands. It's the fabs, the highly specialized fabs, which are in Taiwan, TSMC. And it's the chip design. Now, it's easy to say, OK, well, chip designs are just science and somebody else can come up with a better designing grade. But it's not just the chip design that can create lock-ins and modes. It's the software that goes into operating those chips. And so one of the things that people talk about, for example, in the context of Nvidia is its CUDA. Which is its software layer that people who want to interoperate with Nvidia chips must use. And the ability, for example, to have a data center that might have workloads running

• 43:45Jonathan Kanter?

  on different kinds of chips and mixing and matching. And so to the extent that we're going to see competition emerge in this space, we're going to need to address some of those choke points, or potentially at least. One is by creating more manufacturing and process tool capability. The other is by making it easier to mix and match chips in a data center and elsewhere in order to diversify your dependence on one particular supplier.

• 44:10Ed Elson?

  I'd also like to get your views on AI in the startup world. This has been probably one of my biggest concerns when it comes to AI from an antitrust perspective. I just see all of these big tech companies investing in all of these AI startups. And it feels like they're all kind of investing in each other, collaborating with each other. You've got Microsoft, which was on the board of OpenAI for a while, but they also invested in Mistral and Inflection, which compete with OpenAI. You've got Reid Hoffman, who was on the board of Microsoft, and then he's also the co-founder of Inflection, and then all the employees at Inflection suddenly go over to Microsoft. I just see what's happening in AI, and it feels like it's all kind of puppeteered by the big dogs in big tech.

• 44:54Ed Elson?

  And it feels like they're sort of playing pretend competition, but ultimately they're all collaborating with each other, has been my sense of the situation. What is your read on the AI startup scene? And do you think there is legitimate concern for antitrust enforcement as I have on this subject?

• 45:12Jonathan Kanter?

  This is a significant question and concern that has been raised quite a bit. It's actually something we raised in our proposed remedy in the Google case, which is that if there are query-based AI solutions, generative AI solutions that have the potential to compete against search, Google would need to divest its investments, existing investments, and refrain from making additional investments. These are the kinds of things that seem self-evident in the context of antitrust. We have an opportunity, finally, after all these years, to introduce new actors, new players, create new opportunities for companies to go public and create tremendous amount of value. And whether it's through acquisition in form or acquisition in substance,

• 45:54Jonathan Kanter?

  if these massive players are essentially pulling the puppet strings of smaller emerging rivals and disruptive players, then it creates the same kind of antitrust concern and will lead to the same small number of firms controlling our economy. And that's bad for so many different reasons, not the least of which is already our indices are too dependent on a small number of players so that it creates resiliency risk. And one or two of those players get hurt in the stock market and our whole markets crumble. We need to be more diversified. We need newer voices alongside the bigger companies. We need smaller players nipping at their heels in order to make them more competitive. And we need more companies going public. I think that's been a real deficiency is good companies going public and entering.

• 46:38Jonathan Kanter?

  And frankly, some of these companies might be well suited to unlock value by divesting assets that might be worth more as independent companies than they are as part of a conglomerate.

• 46:49Ed Elson?

  After DeepSeek happened, I feel like there was an opportunity for the technologists to push back on that argument and say, hey, you know, AI is happening really fast. China's getting really good at AI. Look at this thing they've just created with supposedly less money and less compute. We need to increase, or at least we need to pull back our regulation. We need to make sure that big tech can build bigger AI, more AI. You know, we don't want to be too harsh from a regulatory perspective. I think that's an argument that is beginning to emerge. I just would love to get what would be your response to those concerns?

• 47:31Jonathan Kanter?

  I think that's a distraction. So first, you know, there's DeepSeek. I think we all need to learn a little bit more. If you listen to some, it sounds like they used, you know, 20 bucks and an Olive Garden gift certificate to create this major competitor. I think, you know, people who understand the industry know that's not true, right? The models were trained using something called distillation, probably, which is essentially when you copy someone else's stuff. And a lot of the investment, the innovation is in the reasoning part, which is a little less compute intensive. And so that's not to say there weren't really exciting innovations that come from DC. There were, but I think what happened behind it, whether they were circumventing export controls in order to get chips is something I don't know. But I think those are the kinds of questions that people need to ask.

• 48:15Jonathan Kanter?

  It is antithetical to our system to say that we need a small number of really big players in order to compete against China. The way to compete against China is not to be more like China. We are at our best when we have a free, open, fair market economy that allows a thousand flowers to bloom and to innovate. And if anything, we become too dependent on a small number of players, many of whom are not, I mean, these are great companies, but they're global companies. They're not the US government. Many of them have huge alliances with China and care deeply about China, both for manufacturing and for growth. And so, we are at our best when we are promoting the development and growth of more companies, when we are forcing more innovation.

• 48:59Jonathan Kanter?

  I would much rather see a world where we have numerous chip suppliers, where we have more onshore manufacturing capability, where we have big players and small players and everybody in between innovating on top of the various different models and structures. Yes, some of this is very capital intensive, and some of these markets are going to result in a handful of small, big players. Hopefully not. But now, our question is, are we going to let those big players now vertically integrate and conglomerate so they can take over every market that relies on that platform? These are the kinds of lessons we learned from the internet age. We did nothing for 15 years with respect to big tech, and I think we got to a place where everyone in Washington, or at least most people in Washington, realized that antitrust enforcement was too lax.

• 49:43Jonathan Kanter?

  And rather than having invasive regulation and rules, we're better off creating a market where we can have significant amount of competition and entry. And I think that is far more important. The other thing I will say is, in terms of regulation, I sometimes roll my eyes at this because here we are in 2025, and we still don't have any basic privacy regulations. Zero. Think about all the data that these companies collect. There's not a single... Comprehensive privacy bill that's ever made it out of Congress. Right. These, this is, this is the most unregulated industry relative to its size and its significance that the country has ever seen. So this idea that there's been too much regulation is not

• 50:27Jonathan Kanter?

  something I quite understand. That being said, I think the, you know, I, so I push back against this concept that we need a small number of really big players and then we regulate them through government control. That to me, sounds like a planned economy. It sounds more like China. I would much rather have a free and open market that keeps these big firms from dominating, allows smaller or medium sized player to get the scale they need in order to compete effectively.

• 50:53Ed Elson?

  As you look at the state of competition across the US, and I think maybe let's put big tech aside, because I think it's clear what's at stake there. Which sectors would you say are most in need of antitrust enforcement? In other words, where in the economy, aside from tech, is monopolization most problematic or most egregious?

• 51:14Jonathan Kanter?

  Number one on my list is healthcare.

• 51:16Ed Elson?

  Okay.

• 51:17Jonathan Kanter?

  Another area is defense. We had massive consolidation, starting in the 90s, among our prime contractors. And the government spends a lot of money without enough competition, and too many contracts are sole source, or if you're lucky, dual source. And there needs to be more manufacturing, more supply, more prime contractors. I think there's a lot we can do to help save money there. Another is agriculture. Talk to farmers. They are the lifeblood of our, of our economy and our society and our rural communities. They're being squeezed, whether it's seeds, meat packers, tractors. I mean, it's unbelievable.

• 51:57Jonathan Kanter?

  A farmer can't fix their own tractor. He or she has to go to a specialized retailer, buy expensive parts that might be hours away. They can't fix their own stuff in order to operate on their own farms because of right to repair restrictions. These kinds of things are debilitating for farmers around the country. And if you go to rural communities, they will tell you that they are being squeezed and they need more help.

• 52:21Ed Elson?

  Everything you've said so far feels so bipartisan. Like, I can't figure out how, how you could really take issue with any of your positions that, that have been explained on this podcast. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna try. And or at least, you know, I want to point out some things that would maybe be said on the Republican side of things.

• 52:43Jonathan Kanter?

  Not always the Republican side, though. That's the part I would just so this is this issue creates strange bedfellows. Right. And so figuring out whose favor and who's opposed is not as simple as looking at red or blue. These issues transcend politics, and I think they go to different philosophies on do we want a controlled economy with a small number of players and more regulation? Or we do want a decentralized economy with lots of players and perhaps lighter regulation only when necessary in order to promote safety and security?

• 53:13Ed Elson?

  I love that distinction. Who in your view is on the side of of the former? Who in your view in America today? Or which kinds of people want more monopolization in America?

• 53:25Jonathan Kanter?

  The monopolies. So this is actually really the kind of, you know, interesting little bit from my experience. For every case we brought, for every monopoly we went against, whether it's there for every there probably were 20 or 30 companies that were asking us to bring the case, not because they wanted a handout, they weren't going to make any money from our litigation. They just wanted the opportunity to compete. So the the dirty little secret is that business actually likes what we do. They're they're the ones encouraging us to bring cases because they want access to markets. They want supply chains that are affordable. They want greater supply of of key inputs. Right? This is this is something that's quite popular in business. The monopolies though hate it. Right?

• 54:08Jonathan Kanter?

  Because the one or two companies in each market that control it don't like it when the, you know, they're they're sued. I will say this, they they might not like it, but it's better than massive industry-wide regulation. It's more surgical. It's more of a scalpel. Two is they invest tremendous amount of money to throw sand in the gears. They'll, you know, go after you personally, and they'll send people to your house, and they'll, you know, get op-eds written in the newspaper, and they'll go pay university professors to say that you're destroying innovation and this, that, and the other thing. You just have to rub, you know, brush that off. But but, you know, most of the cases that we brought. The only people defending the monopolists were the monopolists or people paid by the monopolist.

• 54:53Ed Elson?

  So it's basically in line with what we're seeing in government right now, which is, you know, the tech oligarchy is emerging, where we have a few monopolists who are running around trying to convince everyone that we should maintain these monopolies. And now they're getting cozy with the president. What is your view on these people's relationship with Donald Trump? And does it concern you?

• 55:14Jonathan Kanter?

  Yeah, it concerns me. I mean, I've seen this movie before and it doesn't end well, right? Like, you know, the role of Google and the Obama administration was was well documented in terms of their role, not just in in getting the campaign and the data, but in terms of the infiltration in government. We tried to squeeze that out and we tried to say we're going to put people in, people like me and others who don't care and who are going to focus on representing the public first, not the the big companies and the donors. And I worry that if we go right back to that situation, it's going to be a problem. The other is you can't dismiss self dealing, right? And so when when companies are advising a government and have something to gain from it, it creates distrust in government.

• 55:59Jonathan Kanter?

  I'll also say like, you know, and this to me was a concern is, you know, think about the inauguration, right? The night of the day of the inauguration, it was held indoors because supposedly it was too cold to be outside. So in the Capitol rotunda, you know, nice and warm and cozy, you had the CEOs of Google and Apple and Amazon and Meta and and others, while the, you know, the rank and file grassroots supporters were outside freezing their their tuchas off, right? So like, to me, that's a metaphor for the situation. And I think if the public wants government to work for it and not just big companies, then it needs to say so.

• 56:41Ed Elson?

  Well, Jonathan, this has been exceptional and I really appreciate your time. I have one final question. For you, if you had to give a piece of advice to young people who are listening to this program, who are interested in government, who are interested in service, and they're trying to figure out how to provide value for our country, what would your advice be?

• 57:04Jonathan Kanter?

  Have a North Star. So I kept a compass on my desk because it was a reminder that every day, ultimately, my North Star was making sure we had a competitive economy that worked for the broader public. I think developing your North Star early on in your career, understanding what values you hold dear, and then working through public service or organizations around public service in order to further those values, in order to make people's lives better. That's what my advice is. It's really easy in Washington. It's really easy in this public policy conversation to get caught up in attention and caught up in ideas and catchphrases. Have a North Star. Start by helping people, figure out what you believe in, and then work backwards from that.

• 57:47Ed Elson?

  Jonathan Kanter is the former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under the Biden administration. During his tenure, he brought major antitrust lawsuits against Google, Apple, Live Nation, and Ticketmaster, UnitedHealth, RealPage, American Airlines, the meatpacking industry, and many others. He also previously served as an attorney at the FTC, and he founded his own law firm, Kanter Law Group. Jonathan, this was so great. I really appreciate your time. And I will just say, it's very nice to have you out of office, because now we get to hear about how things actually work, which is a great benefit. So, you know, there's a silver lining there.

• 58:25Jonathan Kanter?

  All right. Well, it's good to look under the hood every once in a while, and let's go Mets.

• 58:30Ed Elson?

  Thanks, Jonathan.

• 58:30Jonathan Kanter?

  Take care.

• 58:33Ed Elson?

  This episode was produced by Claire Miller and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Mia Silverio is our research lead. Isabella Kinsel is our research associate. Drew Burrows is our technical director, and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow and join us for a fresh take on markets on Monday.

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