Summary

Slater, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust work, is leaving after roughly a year in the role, according to her post on X. Her departure comes as the division continues to pursue antitrust actions against major companies and as questions have surfaced about how merger reviews are handled inside the government.

Slater posted Thursday that she was leaving with “great sadness,” according to the Associated Press report. The move highlights internal tension around decisions affecting large corporate deals, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s bid to acquire Juniper Networks in the telecommunications networking gear industry.

The Justice Department initially sued to block the $14 billion Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks deal, arguing that the combination would give the companies control over about 70% of the market and could result in “threatens higher prices and less innovation.” The dispute was later resolved through a settlement, allowing the merger to move forward.

Slater’s departure also followed public comments from her former top deputy, Roger Alford. In a speech at the Aspen Institute in August, Alford said, “Today cases are being resolved based on political connections, not the legal merits,” after he had joined Notre Dame Law School as a professor.

Slater’s antitrust oversight has been part of broader attention on how the Justice Department handles high-profile mergers under the Trump administration. The report said that President Donald Trump announced he would personally examine Netflix’s proposed purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, then later backed away from becoming involved in a process normally handled by Justice.

The AP report said Slater had worked as a lawyer at Fox Corporation and Roku before joining the government. It also said she served as a policy adviser to vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance in the months before the election.

As the antitrust division pursues other cases, the AP report said it is handling actions including those against Visa, Google and Live Nation Entertainment. In a related lawsuit involving Live Nation and Ticketmaster, an events company is being sued on antitrust grounds for allegedly running an illegal monopoly with its ticket-selling business, Ticketmaster.

After Slater made her X post, the report said stock in Live Nation Entertainment rose and closed up 2.5%.