The tech deal behind the Department of Justice drama

A major deal between two tech companies is threatening to tear the Department of Justice’s antitrust division apart. Roger Alford and William Rinner—who had served in the department during President Donald Trump’s first term—were fired for insubordination after weeks of discord within the division about a corporate acquisition. The firing also calls into question the future of antitrust chief Gail Slater’s tech enforcement agenda. Curiously, the deal at the center of the drama was—if anything—a run-of-the-mill antitrust case. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a wireless network company, proposed to acquire another internet services company called Juniper Networks in 2024, for $14 billion. Juniper was known for its innovations in incorporating AI into wireless systems, and like seemingly every other company in the tech world, HPE wanted to build more AI into its business. But the purchase rang antitrust alarm bells. Prior to the merger, HPE and Juniper were the second and third largest companies in the wireless network market respectively, behind Cisco. The DOJ sued in January to block the merger—its first antitrust challenge under Trump’s second term. And then, abruptly, it dropped the case and settled in June, after winning some relatively small-bore concessions from the companies. The firings were the result of an internal feud—specifically, an argument over the potential influence of Trump-connected lawyers hired by HPE. DOJ higher-ups had overruled Slater and her antitrust division to accept HPE’s settlement offer and drop the suit. The department said that the decision “was based only on the merits of the transaction.” An official at the White House said that the allegations of political meddling in the deal were “inaccurate and untrue,” and that it had not held a meeting regarding HPE in the past several weeks.