Trump Ftc Urged To Prevent 'two Of The Biggest Ripoff Machines In America' From Merging

The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday faced immediate calls to block DoorDash's proposed $17 billion acquisition of rival Instacart, with opponents of the merger arguing it would create a "food delivery monopoly" with disastrous consequences for workers, consumers, and small businesses.

“This is a brazen merger given the amount of heat on both companies for ongoing harms to restaurants, grocers, delivery drivers, and consumers,” Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement, alluding to investigations that DoorDash and Instacart are facing at the state and federal levels. On Wednesday, the FTC ordered DoorDash, Instacart, and other companies to provide the agency with detailed information about their "use of personal data to set prices and compensation."

"Instacart and DoorDash have spent the better part of a decade bullying main street businesses and denying fair pay and benefits to their combined 9 million workers," said Hepner. "This merger represents the next frontier of data-driven abuse, exploiting massive asymmetries of power to squeeze worker compensation on the way in and drain consumer wallets on the way out."

Last year, the Groundwork Collaborative and other groups released a report accusing Instacart of deploying "increasingly opaque pricing practices" that are "blowing a hole in families’ wallets."

Lindsay Owens, Groundwork's president and CEO, said in response to DoorDash's proposed acquisition of Instacart that "a grocery company that made its fortune running experiments on shoppers to determine how much they can overcharge them is now merging with a delivery company that built tech to track its customers’ every click and scroll to charge them as much as it can."

"The FTC knows these two companies are at the forefront of unfair and deceptive pricing technology, which is why it ordered them to open up their pricing labs just yesterday," said Owens. "Two of the biggest ripoff machines in America should not be allowed to become one. The FTC must block this merger."

News of the proposed merger comes a month after DoorDash agreed to a historic $131.5 million settlement with New York City for shortchanging delivery drivers.

In a social media post on Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote that "just last month, DoorDash couldn’t seem to find the money to pay their deliveristas—until our administration forced them to give back $131M+ in stolen wages and penalties."

"This week, they’ve managed to find $17 billion to acquire one of their main competitors," wrote Mamdani. "Corporate consolidation means higher prices, harsher exploitation, and greater economic inequality for New Yorkers. We’ve stood up to these giants before. That doesn’t stop now."

The Trump administration's antitrust record during his second White House term doesn't inspire confidence that the Republican-controlled FTC will intervene to block DoorDash's acquisition of Instacart. States could choose to sue over the merger in the absence of federal action.

“There’s no useful mitigation short of blocking this outright, which the FTC or any state attorney general must now do," said Hepner of the American Economic Liberties Project.