On December 14, 2025, iRobot announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will be acquired by Chinese manufacturer Pica, after its merger deal with Amazon was abandoned in 2024. Once a pioneer of American consumer robotics, the company spent years in regulatory limbo after its proposed acquisition was blocked—draining capital, delaying innovation, and weakening its ability to compete. iRobot’s bankruptcy is a stark reminder that antitrust decisions do not happen in the abstract. 

Now, experts are pointing to iRobot’s collapse as a real-world example of how aggressive merger enforcement can produce outcomes that harm consumers and long-term competition. The commentary below highlights what analysts and policy experts are saying about iRobot’s bankruptcy and the lessons for policymakers.

Regulatory Overreach and the Blocking of the Amazon–iRobot Deal

Springboard has highlighted the long-term effects of the blocked acquisition. 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) President Matthew Schruers argued that “Policymakers and activists who celebrated when a deal to save iRobot was thwarted have cost American jobs and impaired U.S. standing in home robotics. The takeaway should be a cautionary tale for competition agencies reviewing low-risk mergers.”      

Progressive Policy Institute Vice President and Director of Competition Policy Diana Moss discussed in a blog how “antitrust enforcers missed the elephant in the room in Amazon-iRobot. That is, namely, the role of newer and more innovative players in deconcentrating a market by turning up the competitive pressure on incumbents with better technologies and business models that lower cost and improve quality.”

Bentley University professor Kristina Minnick said in CNBC’s Technology Executive Council that “The bankruptcy of iRobot serves as a definitive cautionary tale for the current M&A environment, underscoring fears that regulators are dismantling the traditional safety net for struggling companies.”

Novanta Chief of Robotics Strategy Bob Little identified several factors that led to iRobot’s bankruptcy, but explained that “Blocking the Amazon deal may have led to a worse outcome: a U.S. robotics pioneer now controlled by a Chinese contract manufacturer. Economic and manufacturing security must factor into these decisions.” 

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Director of Antitrust and Innovation Policy Joe Coniglio argued that “Two things can be true: (1) Wall Street speculators hurt iRobot (2) the Khan FTC worked with the EU to block (and would have challenged themselves) iRobot’s acquisition by Amazon, it’s [sic] best lifeline, without good reason.”

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) noted that the FTC had signaled its concerns with  Amazon’s proposed acquisition of iRobot. 

Harm to Innovation, Consumers, and the U.S. Technology Ecosystem

TechNet lamented the iRobot bankruptcy and its consequences moving forward for American tech, writing “The deal would have provided iRobot with the capital, scale, and operational support needed to continue investing in innovation, support U.S. jobs, and deliver more affordable products to consumers.” 

App Association Chair Mike Sax called the iRobot bankruptcy “bad for business,” saying that “regulators in both the US and the EU worked to block the acquisition of iRobot out of concern for ‘killer acquisitions’. They ‘succeeded’ in killing the acquisition and now the iRobot company is officially dead… bankrupt, with all of its customers stranded with useless devices.” 

AEI Nonresident Senior Fellow Mark Jamison wrote a piece titled, “How Antitrust Enforcers Helped Kill an American Innovator,” and said, “The collapse of iRobot is a cautionary tale. Antitrust enforcement that ignores global competition, dismisses efficiencies, and treats American success as a problem will not strengthen markets. It will weaken them—and hand tomorrow’s industries to foreign competitors willing to move faster.” 

The American Consumer Institute called the iRobot bankruptcy a “cautionary tale” in how antitrust enforcement can harm American consumers and companies. They wrote that “Rather than letting @Amazon offer its resources to the struggling company—furthering American innovation and lowering consumer prices—that flailing American company is now being sold to a Chinese firm instead, and its data and know-how will go with it.”

National Review’s Capital Matters editor Andrew Stuttaford wrote that “Acquisitions by large companies can be a good way for entrepreneurs to cash out, see their businesses move to the next case or, in some cases, be rescued.”

Consumer Technology Association CEO and Vice Chair Gary Shapiro called iRobot “a classic story of American innovation” and asked if consumers are better off now that iRobot is bankrupt, saying that iRobot’s story should never happen again.

iRobot co-founder and former CEO Colin Angle called the FTC’s opposition to the Amazon-iRobot merger “wrong-minded.” He said “I bet if you asked almost anyone prior to the blocking of the deal with iRobot: Would you rather see iRobot innovating like crazy, coming out with new and better robots for your home, or would you like to see it file for Chapter 11 in the process of being sold to a Chinese manufacturer?” 

In his Unleash Prosperity Newsletter, Stephen Moore featured a story, saying, “The day Amazon withdrew, iRobot announced it would lay off 350 people. Now, the company is bankrupt. Congrats, Lina. Now everyone loses: the workers, the Amazon shareholders, the iRobot shareholders, and the American economy.” 

The Foundation for American Innovation Board Member Zac Kukoff blamed overzealous antitrust enforcement for the iRobot bankruptcy.   

Digital Liberty argued that lawmakers and regulators who opposed the Amazon-iRobot deal were against success rather than for stopping monopolies. 

Strengthening Chinese Competitors and National Security Concerns

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board argued that antitrust regulators strengthened Chinese competitors and hurt American jobs by opposing the Amazon-iRobot deal in 2024.

Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich criticized the FTC, saying “The iRobot story has become antimonopolist gaslighting. They once touted the abandoned deal as an antitrust win. But now they’ve memory-holed that ‘accomplishment’ since the company has been sold to China.” 

Reason noted that four Chinese companies made up more than half of the worldwide smart vacuum market before iRobot declared bankruptcy, and now that figure will rise even further.

Fox News detailed the potential harms of a Chinese firm buying iRobot, writing that, “As Shenzhen Picea Robotics and Santrum Hong Kong are Chinese-controlled companies, they are subject to CCP laws. This means that any U.S. consumer data the companies gain control of may be subject to China’s national intelligence laws, which can compel firms to provide information to the government without judicial oversight or public disclosure.”

The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) Director of Competition Policy Dirk Auer was quoted in the LA Times: “‘Blocking this deal was a strategic error,’ said Dirk Auer […] ‘The consequence is that we have handed an easy win to Chinese rivals. iRobot was the only significant Western player left in this space. By denying them the resources needed to compete, regulators have left American consumers with fewer alternatives to Chinese dominance.'”

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Vice President Daniel Castro compared the sale of iRobot to a Chinese company to a “missing canary in America’s innovation mine,” and said that opposition to the Amazon-iRobot deal was short-sighted.

The Washington Free Beacon observed that iRobot’s sale “could raise national security concerns given Beijing’s penchant for forcing tech companies to cooperate with its surveillance apparatus. iRobot vacuums, like others on the market, collect data from inside consumers’ homes.”

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance highlighted the WSJ editorial and noted that regulators and policymakers pushed an American company to China.

Institutional Critiques of Antitrust Enforcement

The Competitiveness Coalition’s Chairman Ronna McDaniel criticized then-FTC Chair Lina Khan and Senator Elizabeth Warren, writing that they will not “take ownership for their role in devaluing Massachusetts-based iRobot and forcing it to lay off hundreds of workers, but make no mistake, their influence and opposition to its merger with Amazon undeniably contributed to this outcome.”

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) said that iRobot’s bankruptcy was proof that Lina Khan’s time at the FTC was a “disaster” and argued that the bankruptcy was proof of the harms of “overzealous” antitrust regulations.

NetChoice Director of Policy Patrick Hedger wrote “For too long, the FTC has operated as a central planner, trying to socially engineer markets rather than policing actual anticompetitive conduct. The “neo-Brandeisian” movement has treated American business size as a crime, ignoring the global reality that our companies are competing against state-sponsored giants abroad.”

University of Pennsylvania law and business professor Herbet Hovenkamp called the opposition to the Amazon-iRobot deal “populist merger hostility run amuck.”

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance noted that shareholders would not get equity in the iRobot bankruptcy deal, countering Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claim that she was looking after shareholders in her opposition to Amazon’s acquisition. 

The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) analyzed claims that bankruptcy leads to preserved competition.   

Market Institute Senior Fellow Norm Singleton in his RealClearMarkets piece wrote that “According to EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, EU antitrust enforcers were ‘in close contact with the US Federal Trade Commission’ during the EU’s investigation of Amazon’s proposed purchase of iRobot.”

The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council urged the Trump Administration and Congress to protect U.S. businesses and their employees and ensure that antitrust regulations do not harm American innovation.