Gail Slater, who is originally from Dublin, advised the last Trump administration on issues of technology, telecoms and cybersecurity.

Dalkey, Co Dublin native Gail Slater has been nominated by president-elect Donald Trump’s administration to lead the antitrust division for the US Department of Justice, as the assistant attorney general.

Slater earned her law degree at University College Dublin, before continuing her education at Oxford University. Having relocated to the US in 2003, Slater previously worked at the US Federal Trade Commission, including as an adviser to former democratic commissioner Julie Brill in the Obama administration and recently as a policy adviser for US vice-president-elect JD Vance.

Slater has been advising the US presidential transition team on matters related to the antitrust division, as well as on tech policy and she is expected to take a tough stance on large technology companies deemed to have a monopoly on the industry. 

The selection of Slater must be approved by the Senate and if it is, she will be responsible for a number of high-profile cases, such as the Department of Justices’ bid to pressure Google into selling its Chrome services, as well as against big tech firms with open cases such as Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia.

Similar to previous administrations, it is understood that Slater will continue to target large tech organisations in order to increase competitiveness. In March of this year, the Department of Justice sued technology giant Apple over what they referred to as monopolistic practices that have resulted in significantly higher prices, less choice and lower quality products. 

Last month, Apple asked a federal judge to dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit calling the arguments “speculative“.

In a social media post, president-elect Trump congratulated Slater stating that he has complete confidence in her ability to establish clear and fair laws that will facilitate the ingenuity of the countries’ organisations.

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