Ed Ludlow

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Welcome to our Bloomberg TV and radio audiences around the world.

A recurring theme of recent tech M&A has been deals to bring in talent in so-called acquihires.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking notice.

One member of the FTC warned Thursday that these, quote, creative deal structures could raise antitrust concerns.

Let's discuss and delighted to welcome Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the FTC to the program.

We cover the topic of acqui-hires on Bloomberg Tech regularly.

It was a mainstay story in 2025.

When does a talent deal stop being a talent deal and become more than that, become a merger?

What are the rules-based approach that the FTC would take, chairman, to look at that?

The language of clever or creative deal structures that I cited at the beginning of our conversation was from your colleague and fellow commissioner, Mark Mador, who was speaking at a conference in California yesterday.

I think what the industry hopes to understand from you is what the threshold is or what the set of rules would be where a hiring proposal situation should be reported to antitrust authorities.

It should be, yeah, as simple as that.

It should be by rope reported.

Is there a factor that matters more to you, the number of employees hired or putting a value on the intellectual capital or the competitive advantage that such a transaction would give the acquirer?

Chairman, how common is this in the field of artificial intelligence, or how often is this particular scenario arising and crossing your desk from the AI industry?

Yeah.

You're live with us on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio around the world.

We're speaking to Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the FTC.

I think the biggest case study of late, just to give an example of the structure, is NVIDIA and GROK.