The Federal Trade Commission is approving a merger of big advertising agencies after extracting an agreement that the combined firm won't lead or participate in any advertising boycotts based on political or ideological viewpoints.
The merger condition is a new strategy in the Republican-controlled FTC's fight against alleged advertising boycotts, which could help Elon Musk's X social network and President Trump's own Truth Social platform. The FTC proposal surfaced in a news report earlier this month and was made official Monday in an agency announcement.
The FTC is approving Omnicom Group's $13.5 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group. Omnicom and Interpublic "are the third- and fourth-largest media buying advertising agencies in the US" and will be the world's biggest such agency when the merger is finalized, the FTC said.
The FTC said it approved a proposed consent order to "prevent Omnicom from engaging in collusion or coordination to direct advertising away from media publishers based on the publishers' political or ideological viewpoints." This includes "a series of provisions that would eliminate Omnicom's ability to deny advertising dollars to media publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoint, except at the express and individualized direction of Omnicom's advertiser customers."
FTC chair: Policing censorship a top priority
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement that "investigating and policing censorship practices that run afoul of the antitrust laws is a top priority of the Trump-Vance FTC."
Matt Stoller, research director for the American Economic Liberties Project, said the "settlement greenlights the creation of the world's largest advertising agency with no meaningful divestitures, no safeguards for the thousands of workers about to be laid off, and no remedies to protect competition in the broader ad market. Instead, the Trump FTC has approved a merger they themselves admit is illegal."
Stoller said the deal will "effectively funnel money directly to Elon Musk and X—which has been openly extorting advertisers," a reference to Musk threatening to sue companies that don't buy ads on X. Stoller said the FTC decision "reflects lawlessness, and a pattern of blatant abuse of the FTC's authority to improve the political fortunes of big business Republicans and Big Tech."