HP
uber1
https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/6950F840-FB80-FCB0-D505-8AB1FA685F08#-2098
BALLROOM MIKE DAVIS FIXER JUNIPER MERGER MONOP
SEE HEWLETT FAM
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7 26 We Talked to a Trump Whistleblower. What He Saw Will Shock You.
Jul 7, 2026
There's a set of MAGA lobbyists in DC who can get you anything you want from the White House, legal or not. Ticketmaster, Paramount, crypto companies — they're all exploiting this pay-to-play system.
KROGER REALPAGE UNITED HEALTH AMAZON GGL LINA KHAN // JDV?!
GAIL S ROGER ALFORD BOSS
1:33
1 minute, 33 seconds
[Liz Scheltens] For the last 40 years, across administrations from both parties, politicians have mostly been content to let corporations keep getting bigger and more powerful.
1:43
1 minute, 43 seconds
But in recent years, something has started to shift. [Anchor] The federal government is suing to block the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history...
1:52
1 minute, 52 seconds
...arguing that it would reduce the number of supermarkets, which would mean higher prices.
1:55
1 minute, 55 seconds
Today, the Justice Department and eight states sued software company RealPage, alleging it illegally helped landlords unfairly fix prices and raise rents throughout the country.
2:07
2 minutes, 7 seconds
At the end of the first Trump administration, there were very large and significant monopoly cases that were brought against Facebook and against Google.
2:16
2 minutes, 16 seconds
[Liz Scheltens] When Lina Khan took over the Federal Trade Commission under President Biden, she and her colleagues in the Department of Justice continued those suits, and filed dozens more.
2:26
2 minutes, 26 seconds
[Anchor] Department of Justice has launched an antitrust probe into UnitedHealth. The move is part of the Biden administration’s push to lower drug prices.
...5:15
5 minutes, 15 seconds
We want him in a very high capacity. Mike Davis. Mike. Thank you, Mike. Where is Mike? Mike is great.
5:24
5 minutes, 24 seconds
Mike Davis actually recommended Gail Slater to President Trump for the top antitrust job. Davis has denied the threatening phone call.
5:32
5 minutes, 32 seconds
But it is true that a couple of weeks after the election, he started getting big checks from corporations like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who wanted him to use his connections to push their mergers through.
5:42
5 minutes, 42 seconds
[Roger Alford] His salary is $300,000 a month. He has a contingency fee of over $1 million for any successful mergers.
5:51
5 minutes, 51 seconds
They hire this lobbyist and the lobbyist starts talking to higher-ups, saying, you like us, we're on your team.
5:59
5 minutes, 59 seconds
Just tell them to drop the case. [Liz Scheltens] And they did.
6:02
6 minutes, 2 seconds
DOJ sources told the Wall Street Journal that a couple of weeks after the threatening phone call, Gail Slater's boss, quote, “placed a document on her desk.”
6:11
6 minutes, 11 seconds
It was a settlement deal written by Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s own lawyers. It was a genuine shock.
6:19
6 minutes, 19 seconds
When Gail Slater asked her boss what would happen if she refused to sign it, he told her, quote, “She was too difficult to fire, but he would fire her deputies.” She signed, and then he fired them anyway.
6:32
6 minutes, 32 seconds
And we all basically strongly suggested that that was inappropriate. And as a result of that, I was terminated.
6:39
6 minutes, 39 seconds
[Anchor] Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, they're up more than 12%, after the DOJ gave the green light for the proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.
6:48
6 minutes, 48 seconds
This is oligarchy in action: company gets sued, they hire a million-dollar fixer with the president's ear to leverage his loyalty and make sure that the suit goes away.
6:58
6 minutes, 58 seconds
They get a sweetheart deal, and then, when someone like Roger Alford gets in the way, they make sure he gets fired.
7:04
7 minutes, 4 seconds
This type of, let's call it, pay-for-play politics hadn't happened since Watergate. They're dropping cases because they decided someone's a friend.
7:13
7 minutes, 13 seconds
That's not the rule of law. That's the opposite of the rule of law.
7:16
7 minutes, 16 seconds
A few months later, one of America's most hated companies decided to try the same play for themselves.
7:24
7 minutes, 24 seconds
[Anchor] Outrage over Ticketmaster and Live Nation gouging consumers on big concerts.
...
7:50
7 minutes, 50 seconds
A bunch of state attorneys general signed on to the suit as well, including Phil Weiser of Colorado and Jonathan Skrmetti of Tennessee.
7:57
7 minutes, 57 seconds
I mean, there was tremendous evidence of very aggressive, almost mafia-like tactics.
8:02
8 minutes, 2 seconds
We had some witnesses, they would get a phone call and it was basically like, “Hey, nice arena you have there.
8:08
8 minutes, 8 seconds
Be a shame if anything happened to it.” You know, we have the internal conversations laughing about how dumb their customers are and how great it is that they can rip ’em off.
8:16
8 minutes, 16 seconds
[Anchor] The messages between two ticketing directors saying, “These people are so stupid.” Another message saying, “Robbing them blind, baby.”
8:25
8 minutes, 25 seconds
[Liz Scheltens] When President Trump took office in 2025, his Department of Justice decided to continue the Ticketmaster suit. Ticketmaster thought they would try the same play as Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
8:35
8 minutes, 35 seconds
They hired Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former campaign manager, as a fixer. They donated to Trump's inaugural fund.
8:41
8 minutes, 41 seconds
And they hired Mike Davis, the same fixer who got Hewlett Packard Enterprise their sweetheart deal.
8:48
8 minutes, 48 seconds
Davis went after Roger Alford's boss, Gail Slater.
8:52
8 minutes, 52 seconds
[Roger Alford] Once it became clear that Gail Slater was going to resolve these cases on the merits and wasn't going to listen to Mike Davis based on arguments other than the merits, he turned on her.
9:02
9 minutes, 2 seconds
He directly lobbied the president of the United States to get someone who was committed to enforcing antitrust laws on the merits to be removed.
9:10
9 minutes, 10 seconds
[Anchor] The head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is out.
9:14
9 minutes, 14 seconds
Gail Slater was fired today from the role after months of tension with the Trump administration. [Liz Scheltens] The moment Gail Slater's firing hit the news, Live Nation’s stock price skyrocketed.
9:24
9 minutes, 24 seconds
Shareholders were anticipating big payouts on the backs of consumers. [echo] Robbing them blind, baby. And then, two weeks after she was fired...
9:32
9 minutes, 32 seconds
[Anchor] The Justice Department has reached a settlement with Live Nation in its antitrust case. Not everyone is on board. The proposed settlement didn’t even rise to the level of a slap on the wrist.
9:41
9 minutes, 41 seconds
[Liz Scheltens] Live Nation wouldn't have to sell off Ticketmaster, just a handful of venues.
9:46
9 minutes, 46 seconds
So it looked like the same play had worked again: get sued, hire a fixer, get a sweetheart deal.
9:53
9 minutes, 53 seconds
But there was one wrinkle for Ticketmaster.
9:56
9 minutes, 56 seconds
From my perspective, this was not a sufficient settlement to take care of Tennessee consumers.
10:01
10 minutes, 1 second
A bunch of those state AGs decided to continue with the suit, even after the Department of Justice settled.
...
10:51
10 minutes, 51 seconds
[Phil Weiser] The president put up a social media post and said, let the deal through.
10:55
10 minutes, 55 seconds
Now, we don't know exactly what happened behind those scenes, but I want to underscore how unusual that is.
11:01
11 minutes, 1 second
There was no DOJ investigation when the country's largest real estate brokerage, Compass, wanted to buy its rival Anywhere.
11:08
11 minutes, 8 seconds
Now, they're free to saddle middle-class homebuyers with even more junk fees in a housing market we can already barely afford.
11:16
11 minutes, 16 seconds
Compass even hired Mike Davis, the same fixer that got HPE and Live Nation their deals.
11:22
11 minutes, 22 seconds
But nothing has made the corruption more clear than the Department of Justice's recent approval of the merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers.
11:31
11 minutes, 31 seconds
The deal puts one of Trump's top political donors at the head of a media empire that will include CNN, CBS and HBO.
11:40
11 minutes, 40 seconds
And according to the Wall Street Journal, the staff attorneys in the antitrust division were leaning toward suing to prevent this merger.
11:48
11 minutes, 48 seconds
But again, they were overruled by the top brass at the Department of Justice.
11:53
11 minutes, 53 seconds
State AGS are teaming up to challenge the HPE, Nexstar, and Compass mergers in court, and they're considering whether to do the same for Paramount.
...
4:12
Hewlett Packard Enterprise looking to buy Juniper Networks.
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SJMN AN 11 25
As recently as the 1980s, California was still a red state — from Bakersfield to San Diego to Simi Valley to Glendale. Orange County south of Los Angeles was a bastion of conservatism, and the state's famously conservative GOP governors included Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson.
These days, California is a Democratic stronghold. Yet it still has pockets of conservatism, including Silicon Valley tech bros who have allied themselves with President Donald Trump. And according to Mercury News reporter Ethan Baron, that bond is showing no signs of weakening.
Baron, in an article published on November 2, reports, "Silicon Valley technology companies' cozy relationship with President Donald Trump appears to be deepening and bearing fruit, as firms and their leaders show fealty with gifts, policies, and public statements of support, and CEOs show their ability to influence the president on matters of politics and business. In recent weeks, the White House has confirmed that Google, Meta, Apple, and HP donated to the construction of Trump's new White House ballroom, with Santa Clara chip giant Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, later saying he was 'delighted to be part of it'…. Google and YouTube parent Alphabet, in late September, agreed to pay $22 million toward the ballroom, in a settlement over a lawsuit by Trump over his suspension from YouTube after the January 6 insurrection."
Baron adds, "In similar cases, Meta agreed to pay $22 million toward Trump's presidential library, and X agreed to pay a settlement of about $10 million."
Jan English-Lueck, a San Jose State University anthropology professor known for studying the tech industry, told the Mercury News that Silicon Valley tech bros "need to protect the assets of their companies from the very real threats that they could face."
Nolan Higdon, a lecturer at Cal State East Bay lecturer, told the Mercury News, "When they need something, they give him things…. Trump has shown that unless you force him to stop or defeat him, he won’t stop. That begs the question with these tech execs: How much is he going to ask of them and how much are they going to give?"
*Read Ethan Baron's full Mercury News article at this link (subscription required).
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this will be co, see other for family/ fdn
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cpj
Some investigative campaigns however, have run into legal trouble. Back in 2006, the California Attorney General found that private investigators hired by Hewlett Packard to trace leaks to the press had targeted the phone records of nine journalists. Hewlett Packard's general counsel resigned and a court sentenced one of the investigators to three months in jail for identity theft.
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The time has come for these purportedly pro-climate companies to put up or shut up. If they care about the climate, then they must stop funding the anti-climate Chamber and its bogus studies. This is not a radical step to take. Many blue-chip companies have already left the Chamber – some publicly, like Apple, CVS and Pacific Gas & Electric, and others privately, such as Costco, eBay,Hewlett-Packard,General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft Heinz, Mars, Mattel, Mondelēz, Nestlé, Starbucks, Unilever and Walgreens Boots Alliance. Many of these companies quit the Chamber because of the Chamber’s anti-climate work.