Walmart built its empire on working Americans.
Now Trump's FTC has proof the company was secretly taking money straight out of those workers' pockets.
Here's what Walmart was doing to its own delivery drivers – and why the $100 million judgment announced today is only the beginning.
Walmart Spark Program Hid the Truth About Tips and Base Pay Since 2021
Walmart's Spark Driver program launched in 2018 with a simple promise: sign up, make deliveries, keep your tips.
Millions of gig workers accepted those "offers" through the Spark app based on exactly what the screen showed them – the base pay, the tip amount, the total they'd pocket for the delivery.
Walmart knew those numbers weren't real.
The company showed drivers tip amounts without disclosing a critical detail: the customer's tip hadn't been preauthorized.
If the charge failed, the driver got nothing – and Walmart never mentioned that upfront.
It gets worse.
When Walmart split a customer's order across multiple drivers, it also split the tip – without telling the driver accepting the original offer that the amount shown on the screen would be divided.
Drivers showed up, completed the work, and got paid less than promised.
The company also offered "incentive pay" for certain tasks while burying the conditions required to actually collect it – including a referral bonus that quietly required the newly recruited driver to work a specific zone or store, a condition Walmart never disclosed.
And on multiple occasions, Walmart failed to pass collected customer tips to drivers at all – without refunding those tips to customers either.
The FTC's complaint says Walmart was aware of these problems and did nothing to fix them.
The $100 Million FTC Judgment and What Ferguson Is Demanding From Every Delivery Company
The FTC – joined by 11 states including California, Illinois, and North Carolina – filed its complaint Thursday in federal court in California.
Walmart agreed to a $100 million judgment, with the bulk going directly to Spark drivers who were shorted on earnings they were promised.
The settlement also bans Walmart from modifying an offer's base pay, incentive pay, or tip amount after a driver accepts it – except in narrow circumstances like a customer cancellation.
And it mandates an earnings verification program, along with annual reporting to the FTC for the next ten years.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson – Trump's appointee who replaced Biden's radical Lina Khan – called the outcome exactly what it is.
"A huge win for American workers," Ferguson told Fox Business Thursday.
He didn't stop there.
Ferguson put every gig company on notice: "Any of the sort of gig delivery services that try to induce people to do deliveries by making promises about compensation have to be honest about those promises, and we're going to hold everyone to account – not just Walmart."
This Is a Pattern, and Trump's FTC Is Cleaning It Up
This isn't the first time a corporate giant got caught stealing tips from gig workers.
Amazon did the same thing with its Flex delivery program – promising drivers 100% of tips, then quietly diverting that money to cover base wages.
The FTC sued Amazon and recovered over $60 million in a settlement.
Grubhub followed with a $25 million settlement after the FTC and Illinois caught the company misleading drivers about potential earnings.
Walmart's $100 million judgment is the largest in this string of FTC gig worker enforcement actions.
Ferguson made clear this posture is foundational to Trump's America First economic agenda.
When he took over from Lina Khan in January 2025, he stood up a Joint Labor Task Force specifically designed to root out "deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor market practices that harm American workers."
Today's settlement is that task force's most significant result.
Corporate giants that use the gig economy model to expand their reach are now on notice that hiding the fine print from workers carries a price tag.
Walmart brought in $681 billion in revenue last year.
They ran this scheme for years, skimming tips and inflating pay offers for people driving their own cars to deliver groceries and household goods.
Ferguson and Trump just made them pay for it – and told every company watching they're next.
Sources:
- Taylor Penley, "FTC Chair Touts 'Huge Win for American Workers' After Walmart Agrees to $100M Settlement Over Driver Pay," Fox Business, February 26, 2026.
- "Walmart Agrees to $100 Million Judgment to Settle FTC, States' Charges Over Deceptive Earnings Claims Related to the Company's Spark Driver Delivery Service," Federal Trade Commission, February 26, 2026.
- "FTC Helps Walmart Spark Drivers (and Other Gig Workers): Here's How," FTC Consumer Advice, February 26, 2026.
- "Andrew N. Ferguson Takes Over as FTC Chairman," Federal Trade Commission, January 22, 2025.
- "New FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson Previews Trump Admin's Plans for the Agency," Fox Business, February 2025.