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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that they will more forward with an administrative case against Microsoft's $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. This plan was announced by the FTC (PDF) themselves on September 26, 2023. The good news here is that the FTC's tomfoolery cannot prevent Microsoft from closing the deal before the deadline of October 18, 2023.

The FTC's decision to continue wasting taxpayer money on a battle they've already lost, comes after FTC was denied their request to extend the pause on Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Shortly after that loss and denied pause extension request in July, FTC chair Lina Khan was questioned by the House Judiciary Committee on why she and the FTC at large was wasting so much taxpayer money on merger trials like the ones they keep pursuing between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

It perhaps wouldn't be too off base to suggest that Khan and the FTC care little about wasting taxpayer money given that they are again choosing to go after Microsoft over this acquisition. The difference this time is that the FTC won't be able to do much of anything until after the deal closes. Now I'm no government official, but I could certainly think of at least a few better things to spend big government funds on that isn't this.

The always outspoken Activision CCO and executive vice-president Lulu Cheng Meservey also had some words to say about the FTC's new challenge.


As for the acquisition itself, it seems to be on track to be finalized very soon. Microsoft already earned approval from nearly everyone that they needed to. They got approval from the European Commission, defeated the FTC in court, and have made enough concessions to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that it's pretty much a done deal at this point.